The Next Great Adventure
by profigymulligan
Summary: Harry dies in his original world, but someone is watching and, impresed with his sacrifice, sends hi to another world for a new life.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is based on a story that I recently read but was never completed. It was called sacrificial second chance if you are interested. My story will be somewhat based upon that story, at least the premise and the kind of person Harry becomes. However, as a psychologist I am also aware of most of the idiosyncrasies of the psychopath so will perhaps have a slightly different portrayal of the previous Harry.

I am writing this story as a kind of start back into writing after a long and problematic period of time. I have been diagnosed with an incurable chronic disease I have had for 11 years but misdiagnosed until now. I have just gone through an acute stage of the disease so was unable to write and continue my other stories during this time, but hopefully once my muse starts up properly again, I'll have more to put into my other stories.

P.S There is a poll up on my profile for the pairings for this story as I don't know at the moment who it will be between. The top 2 or 3 will be used in the story.

Chapter 1.

Yama, the god of death and Karma watched one of his favourite mortals as he fought against the dark lord of his age. This mortal was Harry Potter and Yama was always fascinated with the different ways that this mortal managed to overcome obstacles that were put in front of him, always to succeed in the end. What Yama liked the most though, was that no matter which incarnation of the boy he watched throughout the multiverse, every one of the Harry Potters he watched were intrinsically good people and always did their best for the people they cared for and those they didn't even know.

At the moment as he watched, this Harry Potter who was particularly selfless and loving, was facing against Voldemort in the great hall of Hogwarts. They were facing off and Yama could tell from a scan of the boy's thoughts that he intended to sacrifice himself for the good of the world and so that those who he cared for could live in peace and harmony. This touched Yama more than he thought it would and for the first time in 4000 years, he shed a tear for the actions of a mortal. At that point as he watched the child-man cast a spell, summoning the sword behind the dark lord while the dark lord was busy revelling in his victory as he had cast an ancient dark curse towards the defenceless boy. As the curse struck the boy in the chest, the sword pierced through the back of the dark lord's neck, decapitating him, ending his reign of terror. The spectators around them who supported the Potter boy spun on the spot and easily subdued the remains of the dark lord's following and once this had been done, all mourned the loss of the possibly most loved magical being in magical England at the time.

Yama, knowing that he would need to judge this mortal saw instantly that a special gift was going to be needed for such a pure and giving soul. He thought through all the buoy had to endure through his life, the losses and the trials and decided that he would grant the boys deepest and most fervent desire. He then began searching through the multiverse for a suitable location for his gift to be presented.

Yama looked into the world he had found with a deep frown. This world was quite far away from the one he had seen his favourite mortal in and he could tell it also by the way this Harry Potter was. Unlike all of the Harry Potters he had ever seen, this one was far from the kind and generous individual who would do anything for others. In fact this one was a monster. Yama watched silently as the boy in his vision rose and began his day.

Harry Potter awoke with a scowl on his face. He rose, tucking his curtain of dark red hair behind his ear so he could see what the tie was. Seeing that it was still quite early, he sat on the edge of his bed and contemplated what he was going to do this day. He knew his mother was keeping more of an eye on him at the moment as she had caught him the other day with a knife he planned to use on the next door neighbour's dog as it annoyed him by barking during the night. It wasn't particularly loud, but it was annoying so it had to go. Thinking of annoying, he focussed on his two sisters. He grinned as he thought of the times where he had hurt them, but in such a way that no one could tell it was him. He had learned in his ten years of life just what he could and could not get away with and so made sure every time someone was hurt in the house that he was not in the room or there was no way they could accuse him due to lack of evidence.

He could tell though that they were getting wise to him, especially his sisters. Hmm, he thought to himself, perhaps it is time for them to have a permanent accident. They are not as important as me after all and those two idiot parents of mine spend way too much time with them or on them. Plus it will hurt them both if something happened to one of their precious daughters. He cackled within his mind, and swore that even if it killed him, he would make sure his sisters were out of the picture. He believed though that there was nothing that could hurt him as nothing else in this world was as real as he was. Everything and everyone else in this world were just two dimensional facades to him to be used and abused.

Yama, who happened to be listening to the boy's thoughts at the time decided he had heard more than enough. Reaching down, he removed the boy's soul and brought it into the in-between, the place of judgment. The soul, looking like the physical form it had inhabited looked around wildly for a moment and then spotting Yama, sneered and asked "Where in the hell am I and who in the hell are you?" Yama, having taken a particular dislike to this soul sneered back, removing the soul's previous expression from its metaphysical face and answered "I am the god Yama. I am here to place judgment upon you for your crimes." Upon hearing this, all arrogant features from the boy vanished the face paled dramatically as it realised now that it was not only dead, but in judgment and the knowledge of its crimes was apparent to this god. Yama smirked and walking around the soul, he began talking "I have watched your actions these past ten years child and I must say I have never witnessed someone with such abhorrent behaviour as you. You are cruel, you are vindictive, you hate with a passion for no apparent reason that you don't want to love. I do not see you reforming at all, instead I see you becoming worse over the years. For this reason, among others, I am placing you in purgatory for ten years. You will experience the pain you have foisted on those who are innocent and those who love you every day for those ten years. If you do not change, you will be condemned to the underworld and will be punished. If you redeem, you will be given a second chance. Now go!" With these words and a wave of his hand, he sent the soul onto its punishment in the hope that it would reform and have a second chance. He did not like condemning a young soul like this, but he had seen the signs before and knew there would be little chance it would reform on its own. Sighing, Yama moved to the realm where the soul of the Harry Potter he was rewarding was residing after its untimely death.

Harry Potter looked at his surroundings in consternation. All around him was a white mist, reminiscent of the time he had been hit by the killing curse in the forest. Seeing that he was naked once more, he wished for clothes and they appeared next to him. He quickly got dressed and began to walk around to see where he was. The problem was though that there was nothing here. There was nothing in the mist, there was no Kings Cross Station, there didn't even appear to be a floor.

"Hello?" He asked, to see if there was anyone here. Hearing no answer, he wondered where he was this time. He had hoped that he had done enough to be able to pass through to the afterlife and finally see his parents. He had been looking forward to seeing them since his first year when he had seen them in the mirror of erised. He began to despair, thinking perhaps his death was seen as a form of suicide for he had been taught when he was a lot younger and this Aunt Petunia had forced him to go to church that killing yourself was a mortal sin which condemned you to hell.

"No, your actions were not seen as a sin Harry." A voice came from the mist behind him sounding reassuring. Harry turned to see a figure clothed in shadows, or at least it seemed that way. He then realised that the figure was actually so dark that no light actually reflected from the figure, even its eyes were black. Chuckling to itself, the figure snapped its fingers and took a more normal-looking appearance. His hair was long and black and held back in a ponytail, his skin was almost white it was so pale and his eyes were an iridescent blue. He wore a black robe and on its breast pocket it held a design of a continuous knot which Harry later learned was the sign for Karma.

"I must apologise young Harry. I was just finished with my duties in judgment for a particularly nasty soul and had my appearance look appropriately scary for a suitable punishment that I gave it. My name is Yama and I am the god of death and Karma. I judge the souls that enter the afterlife and decide whether they are worthy to pass onto their reward or whether they are to be punished and perhaps given a second chance." Yama explained to the soul before him. Harry gulped upon hearing who he was facing and bowing slightly said "I am pleased to meet you sir. I was afraid I had been condemned for my actions. I was hoping to be able to see my parents after all of this time."

Yama nodded at this and waving his hand he conjured two chairs. Motioning for Harry to do so, he sat in his own chair and folding his hands together, leaned forward and began to explain.

"Harry, your actions in your life were exemplary. You have to be the most selfless individual I have met in my long existence. You left the world you inhabited a much better place and many loved you for your actions that saved not only the wizarding society, but also many lives from being ended by the dark lord. For these reasons I am here to offer you a very special reward. This is not something that is normally done so please think carefully about your decision, alright?" Harry looked intrigued as the god had hoped he would be and nodded his understanding. "Well what I am proposing is to send you to an alternate world to live a life which you had been denied. I recently came across a world where a very different version of you for some reason was born as what I can only describe as evil. He had your talent in magic and the lack of morals to use it to his own gains. He would have been much worse than your Voldemort had I let him continue. Luckily the idiot was unintentionally promising his own life in exchange for the lives of his sisters, which he was planning on ending in order to get more attention from is parents." Yama knew that this information would be hard for this Harry to hear as the boy wanted nothing more than a family, but he knew it was also important that the boy had all the information he needed in order to make the best decision as well as knowing what he would be in for in this new world.

Harry on his end looked appropriately horrified at the actions of his counterpart in this world. He could not imagine doing something similar and vowed that if he took this opportunity that he would make it up to his family as much as possible. After a few minutes of getting over his shock at his counterparts actions, he looked back up and indicated for Yama to continue. "Okay, well I took his soul and judged it necessary to have some corrective action taken, which is happening as we speak. What I propose is that I put your soul into his body and you take over his life. He has only just turned 10 years old, meaning you have an entire year to get to know your parents and family before you go to Hogwarts. There are several things you need to know about this world though. Are you interested to know more?" Yama asked, eager to hear Harry's answer. Harry couldn't believe the offer he was being given. If he was honest a lot in his previous life sucked. He knew that having his parents in real life would make him agree no matter what else was different, but wanted to hear the god out before saying anything. He nodded again, his thoughts at the offer leaving him speechless.

Yama, who could read the boys mind with ease, smiled as he saw that Harry was willing to take on a lot in order to have his parents back in his life. A deal was a deal though so he wanted to make sure Harry would be fine with the new life he was being given. "Well in this life you will not be the boy who lived. Yes it is Neville, but being in the wizarding world his whole life, the boy has a head the size of Alaska. He also has the attitude pretty much of superiority to all others. Just imagine Draco Malfoy with more popularity and you pretty much have this world's Neville." Yama laughed when he saw the look of disgust on Harry's face. "Now I would suggest you enjoy your life and do the best you can. You will have all your previous power added onto the previous Harry's magic as well as your knowledge. You don't have the dursleys to screw up your psyche this time so make your parents proud. After all they were top in all of their classes. Alright?" Harry nodded, thinking of all he knew and deciding he would not hide this time like he tried to in the past.

"While you are not the boy who lived and the chosen one, you still have the power of the chosen one. This means you still have the power to affect things if you choose to. It is your choice though. Personally I wouldn't blame you if you decided to let Neville handle the dark lord, but if he targets you or your family, know you can whup his ass." Harry almost laughed at hearing the god say this but nodded his understanding. "I'll do it!" Harry blurted without giving the god a chance to continue. Yama couldn't help but laugh at Harry's intense longing in his eyes. He put up a hand to forestall Harry and answered his statement "Okay, I knew you would say yes, but I haven't finished with the information. All of it is important so you need to listen, okay?" Harry realising he had jumped the gun a bit, blushed a little sheepishly and nodded, waiting for Yama to continue.

"Okay, now you need to understand that when you enter this body that your family have been dealing with a monster for almost 8 years as he only started being this way from about the age of 2, so they will be wary of you to begin with, just give them a chance to get to know the real you and everything will be fine. I am afraid you will be tripping over your counterparts doings for a few years at least as I am pretty sure some of your teachers at Hogwarts had met the previous you, which did not make a good impression. Perhaps a heart-felt apology when you met them would be best? Harry thought about this for a moment and agreed an apology would probably be best. However he also knew that first impressions would always colour someone'S future impressions of him, but he figured it was not much different than people having initial assumptions of him in his former life. Yama continued, "You also need to understand as well that not everyone in this world will be the same. Just because they were good in your world, doesn't mean they will be so in this world and vice versa. Finally, your personality is made up fifty percent physical and fifty percent mental or as we say, spiritual. The previous Harry that inhabited the body you will had a particular disorder because both his mind and body were set that way. What this means for you is that you will have a couple of personality changes. It is nothing big, but I believe the changes I foresee will do you some good. An example will be that you will look out a little more for yourself than you have previously as you will value your own skin more than some others. This is not a bad thing Harry; I would suggest you embrace the new you and work with what you have." Harry once again was deep in thought. He knew he had been reckless in his previous life when it came to his own safety as his saving people thing as Hermione had dubbed it was usually foremost in his mind. He also thought that this had been a product of his upbringing and appreciated the advice Yama was giving him.

"Okay now two final things. Firstly, I will have limited ability to be able to help you in your new life once you are there, so once you are there, essentially you are on your own. So what I will do is give you some special gifts to help you. First I will give you a shield to prevent anyone from seeing into your memories of the past. As far as anyone will be able to tell you suddenly changed your ways at the age of 10 and no one will know you are from another world, not even that sorting hat or the headmaster. I will also give you a cover story to tell your parents and family, which I will help them accept to make things a little easier on you. As I said while they accept what you say, they will still be on guard, just in case you revert, so it is still up to you to change their mind about you. Also I will give you a gift that you will need to unlock by training not only your body, but your mind. Just because you have my shields does not mean someone won't be able to rummage around in the rest of your mind, so learn Occlumency and study and you will be rewarded. Train your body just as much and you will receive a similar reward. I'll leave it as a surprise for you to find out what they are." Harry almost pouted at this last comment, making the god laugh a little. Harry then asked "So what is the final thing you need to tell me?" Yama's previous jovial mood became a little more serious as he stated "As this world is different the horcruxes are different. If you choose to, you will work out what they are and where they are. I thought I should just warn you. However you may find more than one way to skin a cat in that regard." On that note, Yama sat back in his chair and waited for the young man before him to take in all of what he said.

Harry finally looked up and nodded to the god, saying "I'm ready to go. What do we need to do?" Yama smiled at him and clapped his hands, saying at the same time, "Good luck Harry and enjoy your reward!" With this, Harry's vision went black.


	2. chapter 2

A/N: Thank you all for the reviews. I appreciate them greatly. I got asked a question about pairings and really at the moment I have no idea, so I've put up a poll on my profile for pairings. I think I'll have Harry with 2 or 3 girls so the top 2 or 3 will be the pairings I will choose.

Chapter 2.

The first thing that Harry felt when he started to wake was pain. His whole body felt like he had been the recipient of a thorough beating with a beater's bat courtesy of the Weasley twins. Harry tried to lay as still as possible as any time he moved even minutely, pain would lance through his body. Groaning, he opened his eyes and found himself staring at a white ceiling. He found he was lying in a bed and could see from the features of the room that he appeared to be in a hospital room. Looking around he saw that his mother was sitting in a chair nearby and appeared to be sleeping. This gave him a good chance to look at her without anyone seeing his reaction to her. She looked just as beautiful as he remembered from the mirror of erised and the photos he had seen of her. Her hair was long and lustrous and was a deeper red than that of the weasley family. Her skin was pale and her nose was sprinkled with freckles. If it weren't for the lines of stress and worry on her face, he would have to say she was very beautiful. He realise he must have made some kind of noise, for his mother's eyes snapped open and her eyes widened when she saw that he was awake. He smiled at her tentatively and asked "Mum?"

Lily Potter awoke when she heard her son making a small noise from the bed she was sitting next to. She was very concerned after the accident he had been through. She had screamed so loud that everyone had come running when she had found Harry at the base of the stairs with a pool of blood seeping from his head. Even though Harry had been remote and acted aggressively towards anyone who tried to get near to him for the past 8 years, everyone had been concerned when they had seen the state he was in. She was the only one there at the moment because of the time of night it was and because her husband and his two friends needed to go to work in the morning. Her two daughters were being looked after by her friend Elaina Greengrass but would be here in the morning to see how their brother was doing. Her eyes really opened wide when she first saw the look on her son's face.

For years she had seen the remoteness and the almost hateful expression on her son's face, although as the years progressed, he had become better at hiding his emotions from her and her family. What she saw now then surprised her greatly and raised a hope in her heart. The look of remoteness was gone as was the aggressiveness she had so characterised her son by. Instead there was an almost timid and hopeful look me his eyes she had never seen before. Rising up from her seat she went to him and for the first time in 8 years, she hugged her son. Feeling his arms come around her to return the hug, Lily couldn't help but start to cry in happiness.

Harry saw the look of shock in his mother's eyes when she looked at him and eagerly returned the hug she gave him when she moved over to him. He could feel her shaking as she sobbed into his shoulder as she hugged him tighter when she felt him return the hug. After a few minutes of them hugging, Harry knew it was time to start winning his mother over, although from the look of it just giving her a hug was a huge beginning. "Mum, what happened? Why am I in hospital?" Harry asked, not really knowing what had caused him to end up in hospital, just knowing that Yama said he would fix it so that his lack of knowledge of the past was believable. His mother withdrew slightly from the hug and looked at her son's eyes. She could see that his question was an honest one and tearfully she began to talk.

"Oh Harry, I went downstairs when I heard a loud noise yesterday morning and I found you lying at the foot of the stairs. You must have fallen from the top or so the healers said. You were laying so still and you were bleeding a lot from your head. Your father and I rushed you to the hospital as soon as we could and you have been unconscious ever since. The healers said that there was a chance you had some brain damage and that you may not wake from your injuries as you hurt your head quite badly." At this, Lily once again pulled her son into a hug and wept. Harry again returned the hug, deciding that he would never be able to get enough hugs from his mother. They stayed this way for another ten minutes or so, just content to hold each other in a strong embrace. Finally though, Lily pulled back and sat on the edge of the hospital bed that Harry was sitting in and looked at Harry.

"Do you remember what happened yesterday morning?" She asked him. Harry shook his head mutely and looking into his mother's eyes, he said softly "Mum, I don't really remember much before waking up. I remember you're my mum and that my name is Harry Potter, but I can't remember anything else." Lily looked shocked at this and rose quickly, saying "I'll just go and let the healer know you are awake, perhaps they can find out what is wrong and maybe fix it." She quickly left the room and Harry breathed a sigh of relief that she had believed him. He did not know what Yama had planned, but this was probably the best situation possible to really show a change in personality. He remember that Hermione had told him one time about how head injuries can affect a person when she had been reading up on healing in the magical world due to his constant injuries he suffered through his quid itch practices and the game she played. He knew that the brain was very delicate and for some reason while healers can help with concussions, they were very limited as to what they can fix with the brain itself.

A few minutes later a woman dressed in the St. Mungos healer's robes and looking very concerned along with his mother entered the room. She walked up to his bed and have him a reassuring smile. "Hello Mr. Potter. My name is Healer Peters. I understand you are having problems with your memory after your accident?" Harry nodded and explained what he had to his mother. The healer frowned and began casting diagnostic spells to determine what she could. After a lot of spells she halted and looking at Harry and then his mother, she said "It looks like he had a trauma to the part of his brain responsible for his long-term memory as well as the front part of his brain. We can give some nerve restorative potions to fix those areas but there is no telling whether this will restore his memory. While we can fix the functions of the brain itself, we are very limited what we can do with what people call the mind. The good news is once we have fixed the damage he will have no problems with retaining future memories, he just may never gain back what he has lost." Lily, hearing this and seeing that her son appeared to be upset, nodded to the healer and walked over to her son again, enfolding him in her arms and rubbing his back, murmuring "Everything will be fine Harry. We will deal with this together." On Harry's part he felt relief that Yama's preparations had worked so well as well as being upset at the thought of what his alternate-self had probably done to his mother in the past, so it wasn't hard to look upset at what he knew this woman had gone through, yet she was still as concerned for him a she was.

Over the next few days he was placed into a sleep-like state while his brain was being repaired. He had been given the draught of living death so that his brain function was as low as possible while the nerve repairing potions took effect. He awoke on the evening five days after he woke up originally in this world to find his mother once more seated next to his bed. This time however, he did not feel like every inch of his body was bruised, which he was very grateful for. His mother, seeing he was awake held a glass of water with a straw to his lips and he took a long drink, moistening his mouth so that he could speak. "Mum, what day is it?" He asked, not sure how long he had been out of it while the potions worked. He had noticed that his mother had been watching him warily while he had drunk the water, obviously waiting to see whether he would revert back to the monster he was before now that his brain damage had been repaired. The moment he had asked the question, he could tell she was relieved that the person he now was had not reverted. "Its five days after you last woke up Harry. How do you feel?" She asked him quietly, waiting to see if he remembered anything.

"I feel better than last time I woke up." He stated and she smiled to hear that. "Mum, I still don't remember much though." He explained to her quietly. "I have vague feelings about the past, but I don't remember anything concrete." Looking directly into her eyes and taking her hand, he asked "I was not a very good son to you was I?"

Lily could see the distress in Harry's face at the thought of how he had been to her previously and squeezed his hand gently. "Harry, what is important is what happens from now on. I nearly lost you from this accident and that would have killed me to have lost you. Let's make a fresh start and let the past be the past, okay?" Harry, looking into his mother's eyes nodded, but with tears beginning to run down his cheeks, he still felt obligated to say "Whatever I have done to you and our family, I am truly sorry. I might not remember the details but I know it was bad. Please forgive me." With these words he buried his face into his mother's shoulder, ashamed at the actions he was sure his previous-self had done to her and his family. Lily held him tightly, rocking him slowly in her arms and stroking his hair, murmuring that everything would be fine. On the inside though Lily was crying out in joy. Perhaps this accident was more of a blessing than a curse, especially if it gave her back her baby boy. She couldn't wait to tell James and the children about this and hopefully they also will be happy with this result. Coming out of her thoughts, Lily realised that Harry had fallen asleep in her arms and she smiled softly at him. Kissing his forehead, she gently lowered him back into the bed and tucked him in. Rising to her feet, she quietly left the hospital room to go home and tell her husband that they had their son back.

When Harry awoke again it was the morning, with the sun shining through the window to the left of his bed. He yawned and opened his eyes to see the healer from before running scans over him. She smiled brightly at him as he met her eyes and asked "Mr. Potter, how are we this morning?" He smiled at her and responded "I am fine healer Peters. I am feeling much better." She nodded, her smile a little wider in pleasure that he was feeling better. As she continued waving her wand through intricate patterns she asked "Do you remember anything-Else that you didn't remember previously?" Harry shook his head, answering "No. I have vague impressions of what I used to be like, but I have no real memories of anything before I woke up here." Healer Peter's smile dimmed a little at this news, but tried to console him "Well your memories may come back in time. All we can do is wait and see." Harry shook his head with a slight frown upon his face as he said "Actually from what I remember, perhaps it is best if I don't remember. I remember not being a very nice person before and don't think I really want to remember what I have done before. I don't want to be like that anymore. I think I was horrible to my family. I just hope they can forgive me." As he said this his eyes lowered as he once again fought tears. The healer stopped waving her wand for the moment and walking over to his bedside, laid a hand upon his shoulder in comfort. As he looked up at her, she smiled gently at him and said "I don't think that will be a problem. All of your family have been here over the last week and they all have looked really worried about you. I don't think that their forgiveness will be a problem." Harry smiled at her reassurance, but said nothing, knowing from Yama that his path to their acceptance was going to be a long one.

The Potter family arrived at the hospital an hour after the healer had seen Harry. James, Lily and their two daughters; Iris who was turning 9 years old in a couple of weeks and 4 year-old Ivy

"Well the good news is that Harry's injuries are fully healed. There is no sign of the brain damage and all of the bruising and the small fractures from his fall are completely healed." Healer Peters began in a reassuring voice. She could instantly see the majority of the stress within the family disappear when they processed what she had to say. "Now, the damage that was done to his brain has affected his memory and seems to also have affected his personality from what Lily has told me over the past few days. He cannot remember anything before he woke up in hospital, other than a vague feeling that he was not a nice person and that he did something bad in the past. His personality has completely changed, which can be an after effect of the damage in the particular area of the brain where Harry had damage. I don't think however that he will remember anything from the past if his current attitude is anything to go by." James, Lily and Iris looked shocked at this information while Ivy was just too young to understand the consequences of what healer Peters was describing. "The reason why I say he will probably not remember is due to his change in personality." Healer Peters continued talking, noting the family's reactions "His new personality is quite upset that he would have done anything negative towards his family and I don't think he personally wants to remember what he did to all of you. Because of this I believe his magic will actively block his memories from coming back as it would be traumatic to him to experience those memories when he has no recollection." The healer could not help but see that all of the family was hopeful that their injured male member was going to be different from now on and so continued to explain "Now, you must understand he is completely different to the person he used to be and as I said this is quite common in head injuries. Please treat him like a different person. I believe he feels bad enough as it is for anything his other personality may have done in the past. Perhaps you can treat this as a new start for you all." She recommended with a reassuring smile. "I'll leave you to discuss amongst yourselves. You are welcome to see Harry at any time. We'll want to keep him in for a few days and then he is free to go home if everything continues to be fine." With these words, she rose to her feet and left the room.

Lily looked at James with Ivy in his lap and Iris sitting next to him and said "I know this is going to be a shock for all of you, but I have spoken to him and I can tell you he has changed completely. The first thing he did when he woke up was to ask for me and hug me." She saw the look of shock on their faces as Harry had never hugged anyone and refused to even get within hugging distance and continued "Just remember what the doctor said and try to remember he is completely different and does not remember what he had done to us in the past, okay?" All three nodded at this, even Ivy, although Lily doubted she understood most of what she said. They all rose to their feet and made their way out of the conference room and towards Harry's room to meet a member of their family for the first time.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Hi all. Thanks for the reviews, I really appreciate the feedback. For those who have asked, I am only taking the bare concepts from the story sacrificial second chance, hence why my god is Yama and his only part was in chapter 1. Harry's sister's names are the same for the simple reason that I like the names used in the story so I will be using them too. I will use the concept of there being a duelling tournament at Hogwarts because it is a good idea, but apart from that and the way Harry looks, the rest of the story will be my own interpretation. This story will be slow i.e. it will be not a ten chapter wonder.

The poll results are so far going to make the story fun and interesting, that's all I am saying. I am going to leave the poll up until the last point I can, so everyone has a chance to vote for their pairings. If you don't vote, you can't complain when it is time for the romance to begin just remember that

I got asked why Fleur was not in there. Simple reason is that I have 2 stories in hibernation at the moment with Fleur in one of them as the main paramour, so I am looking for something different to get my creative juices flowing again. Hmm that almost sounded disgusting, lol. Anyhow I hope you continue to enjoy the story.

Chapter 3.

Harry was sitting up in bed when his family entered his room, having just eaten breakfast. Lily, upon seeing him awake and sitting up rushed over and gave him a tight hug, which he returned fully with a smile on his face. After a minute or so, Lily pulled back slightly and drawing Harry's attention to the other people in the room. Harry smiled at James Potter, saying "HI Dad."

James potter looked much the same as Harry remembered in the mirror of erised. His hair was black and untamed, looking like he had just been on a broom ride; his eyes were brown and sparkled with mischief behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and his skin was lightly tanned. The skin around James Potter's eyes had been creased with tension when he had first seen his son in the hospital bed. His son had never been friendly towards them from the moment he had begun to talk and only referred to him as sir throughout the years. They relaxed somewhat when he saw his wife hugging Harry and that Harry returned the hug, but all tension evaporated like mist when Harry turned to him and called him dad for the first time.

James approached the two on the bed with a smile on his face that was a little forced, as he remembered what the boy before him had done to his family in the past, but willing to give him a chance. He held out his hand to Harry and said "Harry I am glad to see you are feeling better. You gave us all quite a scare when your mother found you."

Harry could tell his father wasn't quite sure about him at the moment, but knew that in time things would be fine. All he had to do was be himself and his father would see that he has changed. "I'm sorry I scared you all and I also would like to apologise for the way I have been in the past. I don't remember much, but I know I have done bad things to all of you. I would take it all back if I could. I don't like who I used to be and I promise you dad I will never be that person again." Harry said with such conviction and tears rolling down his cheeks that James was shocked into silence for a moment. After a few minutes he laid his hand on Harry's shoulder and with a warmer smile, said "Well let's consider this a new beginning for all of us." Harry nodded, still sniffling slightly.

Harry felt overwhelmed to have both his mother and father near him like this. This had been his dream for so long that his emotions were all over the place. After a couple of minutes absorbing the comfort from his mother and father, he looked up, remembering the two children with his parents when they had entered. The first person he saw was the little girl held in the arms of the elder child. She had eyes the colour of their father, but with their mother's dark red hair. She was looking at him curiously as if he was something interesting she had never seen before. He smiled shyly at her and received a similar shy smile in return. "Hi little one, what's your name?"

While everyone had been told that harry had problems with his memory, none of them thought it would be to this extent where he wouldn't even remember the name of is sister. They could all tell that the question was genuine and that his shyness was that of someone meeting a person for the first time. While everyone else looked at harry in shocked silence, the little girl giggled and said "Hi Harry, my name is Ivy." His smile grew broader at her attitude towards him and he knew that it would not be hard at all to win Ivy over. He asked softly "Can your big brother have a hug Ivy?" With a squeal of joy the little girl clambered down from the arms of her older sister and raced to the bed. Climbing up, she flew into the arms of her big brother for what was the first time for both of them as her big brother had never given her a hug before. Harry enfolded the little girl into his arms and laid his head upon hers and felt a deep love for the little girl, even though he had just met her for the first time. After a minute or so, he looked up at smiled at the remaining girl who had been watching the interactions with an almost blank look on her face. It was almost because he could see in her eyes the conflicting emotions that danced in them. He could see the miss-trust and the hope that this was all real. "Hi, I know you already know this but my name is harry, nice to meet you." He said softly. The introduction must have struck the girl as funny as she giggled softly and smiling a little answered "Hi harry, my name is Iris. I am pleased to meet you too." He smiled for a moment longer but then his look turned serious and he beckoned her forward. As she came forward hesitantly, he could see she was unsure what he wanted. Taking her hand in his and feeling the flinch as he did so, he said softly "Iris, I know I haven't been the best brother to you in the past. Frankly, from your reaction to me I know I must have been a nightmare to you. I am really sorry and I want to make it up to you if I can. I know it will be hard for you to give me a chance, but if you do so, I'll be the best brother you can ask for." Iris's smile became more genuine as she heard the words from Harry. She couldn't detect the malevolence that had been behind the voice before and she could see the earnestness in his eyes when he spoke his promise to her. She took a breath and made a decision after staring into his eyes for a moment longer "It will take a little adjustment harry but I am willing to give it a try." Harry's smile broadened in pleasure when he heard his sister's words and he nodded giving her hand a slight squeeze.

James and Lily looked at each other over their children's heads and smiled as they heard the reconciliation beginning for their family. James had not been sure when he heard the healer's words whether things would be different or whether his son would just be a different kind of burden to their family. Seeing this new side of Harry though, he was hopeful that things would now change for the better. He could only hope this would be so, he knew it would kill his wife and destroy their family if his son reverted back to the way he used to be. Lily was just thrilled that she was able to hold her baby boy once more and that their family had a chance to mend. She too hoped that this change was permanent

Clearing his throat, James stepped back from his family and said with a smile "Well I must be going to work and your sisters need to go to their friends until this afternoon when we can come back and visit you some more Harry." Harry nodded and giving iris's hand another squeeze, he let go and gave Ivy, who still hadn't let him go, another tight hug and whispered in her ear "I'll see you tonight, okay cutie?" Ivy, giggled in response and nodded, letting go of her brother and climbing off the bed and taking her sister's hand. Harry watched as they walked out the door and turned to his mother who had taken the seat next to his bed once more.

After looking at each other for a moment, they both started talking at the same time, making Harry smile a little and his mother giggle softly. She gestured for Harry to speak, so he did "You know, I know your name mum and I know you went to Hogwarts but that is all I know about you. Can you tell me about yourself mum?" Lily, while surprised, mentally hit herself in the face when she realised of course he wouldn't know anything about her. Even if he had not been having memory problems, he had not cared enough in the past to ask. She was thrilled that he was actually interested in finding out about her. She started to tell Harry about everything to do with her life. She told him about how she had first discovered magic and her years through Hogwarts. Harry was fascinated with hearing everything about his mother and drank it like a man who was parched for water. He listened for hours as his mother recounted all the things she could remember happening throughout her years at the premiere school for magic In the British Isles.

Lily, seeing that his interest was still as keen as when she began, blushed slightly and continued to tell about marrying James after school and how she had been recruited as a spell creator in the department of mysteries. She talked about how the war had affected them and how once they had heard they were being targeted that they had gone into hiding. Harry heard about how Remus's abilities as a werewolf which seemed different to werewolves from his reality, enabled him to detect the dark magic within Peter Pettigrew, allowing him to inform the order and expose Peter before he could betray the Potters. He heard the dislike in his mother's voice when she talked of the Longbottoms and how their son had defeated Voldemort and was confused momentarily, remembering that his parents and the Longbottoms had been friends until he remembered Yama's words that not everything would be the same. He had originally hoped he may be able to help the boy-who-lived in this world to defeat his version of Voldemort, but now knew that he would probably refuse any help from a Potter. If he did decide he would help, he realised, it would have to be from the shadows. That was fine with harry as he was done with being famous for something he had never done. If he was to be known for something, he hoped in this reality it would be for something he had done, not for anything he couldn't even remember.

Lily could see by the end of her recollection of her life so far that Harry was flagging. Even though the potions had repaired the damage, his body had to still fully integrate the repairs, especially with his brain and his magic, as it had been used to help him heal. She gently stroked his hair as she could see him flagging and said "Alright Harry, I can see that you are exhausted. Rest now and we can talk more later when you have had a rest, okay?" Harry nodded, too tired to do more than that. He relished in his mother's touch as she ran her fingers through his long dark red hair. He found it very soothing and soon enough he was asleep with a gentle smile on his face that his mother had never seen before.

Rising from her chair once she was sure that Harry was fast asleep, Lily walked to the cafeteria to have something to eat as she had not eaten much over the last few days as she had been so concerned over her son. While sitting in the cafeteria, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin came in, looking for her. "Lily!" Sirius called as they approached and sat down in front of her. "Hi lily. How is Harry?" Remus greeted with a smile, but a concerned look on his face at the same time.

Both men were surprised at the brilliant smile they received when Remus asked his question. "Oh Remus, it's truly a miracle. Harry is going to be completely fine. The potions have taken care of the brain damage and he won't have any further problems with his memories!" Remus smiled at hearing that Harry would be fine but grew concerned at the insinuation in lily's words "So he has had problem with his memories?" He asked concernedly. Lily nodded "Yes, in fact he doesn't remember much before waking up in hospital. All he remembers was that he wasn't a very nice person. This upsets him so much that the healer thinks his magic will actively supress his memories because of the trauma if he does remember." Both Sirius and Remus were shocked at this. Lily then continued "not only that, his personality has changed completely. He no longer has the hate and anger he used to have. He even hugs me now!" Lily revealed with a bright smile and tears once more in her eyes. Both men were stunned at this. They knew that Harry had been a problem for the Potters since the age of 2 years. He had grown cold and remote and never showed any affection. To hear that this person now had apparently disappeared, they were sceptical. Lily, seeing the scepticism in their eyes explained to them what the healer had. Both men thought that this may be the second chance the Potters really needed to make their family whole. They would give this new Harry a chance and see how things went in the future.

"Well I am glad to hear that things have turned out so well Lily." Remus said with a gentle smile on his face. He knew that the distance between Lily and her eldest child had been causing a lot of emotional pain to her and was pleased that this change had occurred. Sirius nodded, smiling as well, saying "Maybe now I'll have the chance to teach my godson to be a marauder and ladies' man!" Remus rolled his eyes at the man-child next to him and Lily, while trying to give Sirius a stern glare said "Don't you corrupt my son now that he's become a good person or I will have you neutered, mutt." Sirius grinned, seeing the playful attitude in lily's eyes and answered "Oh, come on Lily, there's nothing wrong with the boy enjoying his time at Hogwarts." Lily shook her head, smiling and feeling truly happy that everything now seemed to be finally going right for her family after so many years of heartache.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I got a review about the impossibility of a sword managing to decapitate a person due to physics and the angle it would have flown towards Voldemort etc. In every story I have read thus far where a blade has been summoned it has always come towards the summoner tip-first. Giving that the time of Godrick Gryffindor was the 1st millennia I took it that the sword was probably a claymore which has a wide enough blade that if entering the back of someone's neck it would be wide enough to decapitate. If that isn't acceptable enough, this is fantasy, so physics don't always have to work, after all its magic.

For all the other reviews, I say thank you. I really appreciate them. It helps me to be encouraged to write more.

The poll for pairings is still up. Only 19 people have voted at the time of this writing, so please if you are interested in the pairings, then please vote as I won't be responsible for the pairings if you have all had the chance to vote and decided not to.

Chapter 4.

Harry and his family arrived home via portkey, as the healer suggested that Harry's body would not be up to such travel as floo for the moment. Nevertheless as his coordination wasn't that good with his new body and his usual luck with magical transport that followed him through to this world, he landed on his back in the entrance hall at Godrick's Hollow. Chuckling slightly, James gave Harry a hand and helped him to his feet, saying "I guess you'll have to get your sense of balance back after your accident. I could tell as we were walking to the portkey arrival point in the hospital that you were slightly off-balance." Smiling somewhat sheepishly, Harry agreed with this and looked around at his home for the first time.

He could tell from his first look that the potter's lived in a different place to the cottage he and Hermione had visited in Godrick's Hollow in his previous life. For one thing, the hall was much larger than what he remembered and he could tell that the house was actually quite a bit bigger by looking at the large spiralling staircase that led to the upper floors. Lily, seeing his awe at his surroundings, smiled somewhat sadly, but tried to hide it by saying brightly "How about I show you around the house Harry to refresh your memory?" Harry smiled at his mother gratefully and taking her hand in his, they both went upstairs to begin the tour of the house while the others separated to do their own thing. Walking to the top of the house proved to be quite a task for Harry and he was out of breath by the time they made it to the fourth floor. Luckily, there was a couch near the stairs which he sank into gratefully. His mother sat next to him, still holding his hand and looking at him concernedly. "I'm okay mum." He said with a reassuring smile after a few minutes "I'm just a bit more out of shape than I would have thought." Lily nodded and said reassuringly "I'll make some strengthening solution as well as some nutrient potions for you tonight to start taking in the morning. That along with some exercise should help you recover a little faster." Harry hugged his mother in thanks and looked around at the room they were in for the first time. He now realised that he would never have had a problem finding the library as the whole top floor was row upon row of books. While he had not been too studious in his previous life, due to the treatment he had suffered at the Dursleys whenever he had done well at school, his determination to make is parents proud in this life had overwritten this instinct to hide. Therefore he almost drooled at the treasure trove of information that lay before him. He could see that an expansion charm had been cast on this room as apparently there were more bookshelves here than could have fit in the normal-size room. He looked at his mother somewhat in shock and lily couldn't help but laugh at not only the shock, but also the look of hunger that was in the depths of Harry's eyes. "I guess I know where to look for you if I can't find you in your room." Lily teased and Harry grinned back sheepishly, a little embarrassed that he was so transparent to his mother.

The house consisted of four floors, with the library being the uppermost floor. The third floor he later found after a bit more of a rest was separated into two sections. The first was an exercise room/duelling room which Harry was glad to see as he knew now after his trek up the stairs that he definitely would need to exercise in order to even function normally, let alone be able to get to a level of fitness where his gifts from Yama would begin to show themselves. The duelling room was the size of an Olympic size track and harry guessed that once more liberal use of expansion charms had been used to make the room such a large size. The good thing about this was that he would be able to do his exercise within the house when the weather went bad. The other side of the floor was a warded potions lab that was stocked with every ingredient that Harry could think of and even a few that Harry had never even heard of. Lily could tell that Harry's interest was piqued at the potions lab and she asked him "Do you think you might be interested in learning potions, Harry?" Harry nodded enthusiastically at this question. He had been interested in potions from the moment he had opened the potions textbook in his previous life. Snape, however had made learning potions not only more of a mystery than it needed to be due to his technique of not-teaching, but the sheer association of the unpleasantness of the professor with the topic had turned him off. Here though, he had a chance to learn potions before starting Hogwarts, meaning he could get a grounding in the art before encountering the ignoramus in black.

Lily herself was excited at this news as she loved potions ever since Hogwarts and if she had not gone into spell creation in the department of mysteries, she would have gone for the potions mistress qualifications. Here was also a chance to spend more time with her son before he had to go to Hogwarts, meaning she could get to know him even better. Harry could see that his mother was excited at the thought of teaching him potions and he couldn't be happier about that.

The second floor was where all the bedrooms for the house were. Each bedroom that was occupied had a name plaque on it to identify whose domain each room was. By this time, lily could see that Harry was beginning to become very tired again and thought it was best to hold off on the rest of the house until he had rested. Harry couldn't argue with her logic in this regard and Lily led him to his room which was at the end of the hallway. Entering the room, Harry could see that the room was very neat and tidy, but that was all his tied mind could take in at the moment. Lily helped him to dress in pyjamas and then helped him into the large four-poster bed that was in the centre of the room. Laying a cool hand upon his forehead, Lily smiled at her son and kissed him on the cheek, saying "Rest now darling and when you are rested you can finish the tour of the house, alright?" Harry nodded sleepily and rolled over, falling asleep almost instantly. Lily withdrew her wand and with a swish, closed the curtain, dimming the light significantly in the room. Taking a final look at her son sleeping peacefully and deeply, she turned and left the room, shutting the door softly behind her.

When Harry woke, he found that it was evening. His mother must have come in at some point while he was asleep and lit the lamp near his bed, which cast a soft glow throughout the room. Sitting on the edge of his bed, Harry noticed a dressing gown had been laid out for him on a chair next to a desk in the corner of his room along with a pair of slippers. Rising, he put on the gown and slippers and made his way out of his room and down the stairs to the first floor. Luckily the first room he came upon was the living room where everybody was. He knew from the size of the floor that he may have a hard time finding things for a little while. His mother and father were sitting on a sofa while his sisters were sitting on the carpeted floor, Iris reading a book to Ivy. Lily was the first to notice Harry in the doorway and she smiled at him, rising to her feet and taking his arm, led him to an arm chair near where she had been sitting. Harry sighed a little in relief as he sat in the chair, feeling his recovered strength from the sleep already beginning to wane from the small amount of effort it had been to come downstairs. Lily walked through into a room leading from the lounge room and a few minutes later returned with a tray containing a bowl of soup, some bread and butter and a glass of pumpkin juice. She laid the tray down across Harry's lap and said gently "Try to eat as much as possible. I'll give you a nutrient potion once you are finished. I managed to make a batch while you were sleeping." Harry smiled at his mother's thoughtfulness and thanked her softly and began to eat his food ravenously. James, seeing how hungry his son was, chuckled saying "I guess coming home is a bit taxing?" Harry, who had a mouthful of soup and bread, looked up at his father and nodded, eliciting another chuckle.

Harry finished his meal within a few minutes and looked a little guilty at how quickly he had eaten. Lily laughed a little, saying "Don't worry about it Harry. You are still recovering. You are going to be very hungry over the next few days. Here is the potion I want you to take." She handed him a vial of what he could identify as a nutrient potion and he swallowed it down without complaint. A warm feeling of lethargy fell over him as the food in his stomach, the tiredness from the day and the warmth of the living room took effect.

He was roused slightly when he felt a tap on his arm. Opening his eyes more, he looked to see Ivy standing next to him with a book in her hand. "Harry, will you read with me?" Ivy asked him in her little girl voice full of hope. He smiled at her and lifting her up causing a small squeal from her, he placed her on his lap and taking the book from her, opened it up and began to read her Rabbity Babbity. The other three people in the living room looked on at this event with different reactions. Lily smiled at seeing how caring her son was towards his youngest sister and knew she would never have seen him do something like this previous to the accident he had. His father James looked on with mixed reactions. His first reaction was a hope in his chest that this was all real and that his family could finally be complete, yet on the other hand he was filled with caution as he remembered what a problem child Harry had been in the past. Iris did not know what to think. Her brother was completely different to the person he used to be. It was almost like there was a completely different person inside her brother. She vowed to keep an eye on him as she didn't trust that he couldn't trick even the healers into thinking he had changed when he was just setting them up to be hurt again.

By the time Harry had finished the book, both he and Ivy were looking sleepy. Lily decided that it was for the best that both went to bed as it was obvious that it had been a big day for Harry. Taking Ivy from Harry, she handed her over to James with a kiss, saying "Time for bed little one." She yawned and snuggled into her father's arms. Taking a final look at Harry before her eyes closed fully, Ivy said "I like you better now harry." Harry appeared not to have heard as he looked to be almost asleep himself. Lily helped him up and after he wished everyone else a good night, Lily helped him back up the stairs and back into his bed. Harry once again fell asleep as soon as he was settled in the bed.

It took Harry most of a week to be able to stay awake for the majority of the day. The first day he managed this was a Saturday. He awoke early and seeing he was not going to be able to go back to sleep, he rose and went into where he knew his wardrobe was. He had not been in there before as his mother had dressed him in mainly pyjamas while his body recovered. His jaw almost dropped at the size of the wardrobe and he wondered at how big the ego must have been on his previous self to have this many clothes. There was clothes that were for formal occasions down to clothes that wouldn't have looked out of place if he had gone on safari in the African savannah. Moving through the racks of clothes, he found a full-length mirror in the rear of the wardrobe and got a good look at himself for the first time since he had arrived in this world. He stood a lot taller than he did when he was originally 10 years old at about five foot 4; he had shoulder-length long red hair the colour of blood with striking emerald green eyes that almost glowed when he looked at them. Instead of his father's facial features, he could see a lot of his mother in his looks from his cheekbones, to the way his nose was different. His body while thin, was leanly muscled and not the almost starved look he had from the dursley's treatment of him. All in all, he liked the way he looked and knew that the girls would probably think so too. After getting dressed in a pair of shorts and a shirt, he made his way up to the fourth floor and after a wander through the shelves, managed to find the history section of the library. Taking down a few different history texts he sat down and began to examine the past of his new world. From what he could tell, pretty much everything had happened similarly in this world until the attack on the boy-who-lived. Instead of targeting the potters who had gone into hiding, he had targeted the Longbottoms who had made themselves a larger target by refusing to go into hiding like any logical thinking person would. Harry then remembered that Hermione had once told him that wizards didn't have an ounce of logic and looking at the Longbottoms, he couldn't help but agree. Neville's parents had been out the night Voldemort had attacked, instead cousins of Frank and Alice had been looking after Neville at the time and had perished, with Neville being the only survivor.

After verifying that the history wasn't too different, harry returned the books to the shelves and made his way downstairs, looking for the kitchen, hoping to make breakfast as his stomach was demanding. He found Ivy in the kitchen with a pile of cereal on the floor where she had attempted to pour a bowl of cereal and obviously had missed as she was still a little too small to reach the table properly. Chuckling, he went over to her and asked "Need a hand?" Ivy had woken early and not wanting to wake her parents up and thinking she was a big girl now had taken out a bowl and her favourite cereal to have breakfast. Everything went well until she tried to pour her cereal into the bowl. She was looking at the small pile of cereal around her feet and wondering how she would manage to clean it all up before she got into trouble when she heard a voice behind her. Not thinking anyone was up yet, she whirled around, accidentally stepping on some cereal and slipping. She began to fall and braced herself to be hurt when she felt herself caught by strong arms. She looked up to see it was her big brother Harry.

Ivy had always been scared of her big brother before he had to go to hospital. He always looked cruel and even though his voice sounded nice, she could tell if he got angry he would hurt her. After seeing him in the hospital awake for the first time, she knew something had change and he was now a lot nicer person. Laying her head against Harry's chest, she waited for her heart to stop pounding so hard and her stomach to unclench. Harry on his part, chuckled softly and said "I'm sorry ivy, I didn't mean to scare you. Are you okay?" After a moment she nodded, still having her face buried into his chest and murmured something he couldn't quite understand "What was that Ivy? I didn't hear you?" he asked. She looked up at him her big green eyes full of tears as she said "I'm okay, but mummy and daddy are going to be angry with me because I spilt the cereal on the floor." Harry hushed her quietly and rocked her comfortingly for a moment and said "Well how about you help me and we'll clean up the mess. That way no one needs to know what happened and it can be our little secret, okay?" ivy's eyes brightened at this and nodded eagerly. Managing to sweep up the cereal in a short amount of time, harry then proceeded to make Ivy some breakfast while she chattered away to him, sitting next to him on the counter. This was how Lily found them both as she made her way into the kitchen, yawning slightly.

Lily was surprised to see Harry and Ivy in the kitchen as she didn't know anyone else was up. She was further surprised to see Harry cooking as she didn't know he could cook. "Good morning." She said to both of them as she gave a kiss to a giggling ivy and a kiss on the cheek to Harry whose eyes were staying on the pan so he didn't burn the bacon. "Good morning mum/mummy!" Both her children chorused, making her smile widen slightly. Looking at Harry, she said "Harry I didn't know you could cook!" he smiled shyly and said "Well I don't really. I was just hungry and came down to see what there was. I found Ivy here wanting breakfast, so I thought I would give it a go." Lily kissed his cheek again and said "You're a good boy Harry. Would you like me to teach you to cook?" Harry smiled, nodding and they made plans to spend the day in the kitchen, with Lily teaching Harry everything she knew.

Lily helped Harry to make more breakfast for the rest of the family, giving him tips on how to do certain things and showing him how to make the batter for pancakes. Harry of course knew how to do this, but also knew it would be suspicious if he suddenly remembered how to do something like that when he supposedly couldn't remember much. By the time the rest of the family were awake and sitting in the dining room, the breakfast had been prepared and the family complimented both Lily and Harry when they found out he had helped on their cooking.

After breakfast, Lily, Harry and ivy spent the rest of the day laughing, talking and baking in the kitchen. Everyone was complimentary of Harry's cooking and Lily proclaimed during dinner time that her son would be a prodigy in potions if his cooking skills were anything to go by. Harry just blushed at the praise and thanked his mother politely. Both Iris and James were impressed by the bounty they found before them for dinner. There was a hearty stew with fresh bread rolls and. For dessert there was a bread pudding with home-made custard. Harry blushed again under their praises, especially his sister iris. He had noticed during the last week that she had begun slowly to warm up to him as she interacted more with him and saw that the changes he had gone through were most likely permanent. She was slightly shorter than harry was with short black hair that reached just below her shin. Where he favoured his mother's looks, she more favoured their father's facial features, except for her eyes which were the same as his own. Her skin was pale like their mother's skin though and she had the lightest dusting of freckles across her nose. He knew she was probably going to have to beat off the boys with a stick when she went to Hogwarts.

When he lay in bed that night he thought over the day and couldn't help but smile. He had spent the whole day with his mother and Ivy and he could tell that he was well onto the path of being accepted by the whole family. Tomorrow Sirius and Remus were coming over and he would have to begin anew with his marauder Uncles. He just hoped that things will go as well with them as it has with his family. He had missed Sirius immensely over the years he had been gone in his past life and he had really only seen Remus for a short time as well during the same time. With thoughts of tomorrow on his mind, harry soon drifted into a restful sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thanks once again for the reviews. I've received more reviews for this story than the other two. I really appreciate the support. Just letting everyone know I will be taking down the poll upon me starting to write the next chapter, so the next 24 hours are your last chance to vote on the pairings.

Chapter 5.

Christmas morning began with Ivy jumping onto Harry while he was still sleeping, completing her task of scaring him like she loved to do. Like her father, Ivy was a prankster at heart and so enjoyed scaring everyone at any chance that she got to do it. She of course got away with it because she was too cute. Harry, being used to waking up abruptly from his previous life, grabbed Ivy and rolling over, began to tickle her mercilessly.

"You know it's not very nice to scare your big brother." He commented as his fingers danced across his little sister's ribs.

"I didn't mean to scare you Harry, honest!" Ivy gasped in-between her giggles and attempts to get away, which were futile. Harry ceased his attack when he saw tears in Ivy's eyes and let her catch her breath before asking "So if you didn't mean to scare me then what were you doing?" Ivy looked at him innocently and said "I was only coming to see if you were awake. I thought you were pretending to be asleep so I jumped on you." With saying this a mischievous smile appeared on her face. Harry just smiled and shook his head, thinking back to the past couple of months.

**Flashback**

Harry came down early the day he was to meet Sirius and Remus for the first time in this reality. He hadn't managed to stay asleep as his excitement and foreboding at the same time were struggling with each other, causing him to wake early. He first got dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and walked upstairs to the duelling room. Once there, he started a series of stretches to limber up and then began jogging around the track on the outer part of the room. He had decided that an athletic body would be best, but not with too many muscles. He did not want to end up looking like Schwarzenegger, but rather have the athletic figure of a dancer so that his movements were quick and efficient. He soon found though that his stamina was not very good at the moment as he only managed to do 2 laps of the track before he tired himself out. Sitting for a moment, harry regained his breath and made his way back to his room and took a shower. Dressing in some clean clothes he made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

By the time his family made it downstairs, the breakfast was ready. Having sampled his food the day before, everybody dug into the platters of food that were arrayed across the table. Just as everyone had served themselves, the sound of the floo activating reached their ears and a moment later Sirius Black and Remus Lupin entered the kitchen.

Sirius Black looked much the same as harry remembered him from the photos he had in his original world before he had been sent to Azkaban. There was none of the gauntness in his frame or the haunted look in his eyes that harry had often seen after he had first met the man. Instead there was the jokester, the rebel and man who would never grow up. Remus Lupin looked similar to the way he had when harry had known him previously, the difference was though that there seemed to be a lot less stress in his features and less grey in his hair. His clothes were also of a better quality and not worn like they had been in Harry's previous reality.

"Good morning everyone!" Sirius cried with a large grin on his face. Ivy, upon hearing her Uncle's greeting jumped down from her seat and ran and jumped in to Sirius's arms crying out "uncle Padfoot!" Sirius laughed and picking Ivy up, he tossed her into the air, causing her to squeal and giggle madly when he caught her. "Hello munchkin, how are you today?" He asked her as he tickled her a little. She giggled and kissing his cheek, said "I'm good, how are you?" He smiled and said "I'm good as well sweetie." Placing Ivy down he greeted everyone else as he made his way to the table. Finally his greetings made it up to Harry and he looked at harry for the first time since he came out of hospital. Previously, the instincts he had gained from his animagus form had told him to always be on guard when he was near his godson, but for a reason he could never define other than there always being an air of danger around the boy. There was also the accidents everyone suffered in this house, all of which had mysterious causes that he suspected somehow Harry was responsible for. However, when he looked at Harry now, it was completely different. His senses were no longer on alert and all he could get from the boy was nervousness. Deciding to take things as they came, he greeted Harry in much the same way as everyone else "Heya kiddo, how are you after your stay in the nutter wing at St Mungos?" He could almost feel the tension in the air after his comment as he knew that previously a comment like that may cause Harry to erupt in anger as he didn't have much of a sense of humour. However he and everyone else was shocked when Harry grinned and said "I don't know Padfoot why don't you tell me? After all they have a ward there in your name!" There was a stunned moment of silence before both James and Remus fell to the floor, howling in laughter, while Lily and Iris burst out laughing, holding onto each other so they didn't join the men on the floor. Ivy, not quite understanding the joke, laughed along with everyone else regardless.

Sirius stood there in shock, not quite believing what had just happened. Looking at his godson, he could only see a smug smirk on his face as he viewed his success over his honorary uncle. At that moment a look passed between them, Sirius declaring he would get him back for this and Harry's look saying bring it on, mutt. After a few minutes of everyone calming down, Remus walked over to Harry and gave him a hug, saying "I'm glad to see you out of hospital and doing so well that you can put that old dog in his place." Remus did this because as soon as he entered the house, he could tell there was a difference in the atmosphere of the entire house. There was no longer any stress and no longer a lingering dark taint that he had always noticed in the air. Looking at Harry for the first time, he could see that something fundamental had changed within the boy as his whole body language was different. The wolf within him was also calmer at the sight of Harry as before it had always been on edge and ready to attack, now it was more subservient as he could feel the power rolling off of the boy.

**End Flashback**

After that first time, the prank war was on between harry and Sirius and if anyone else got caught in the cross-fire, so much the better. One morning, harry woke up to find himself with his hair replaced with feathers and his mouth with a beak and the only noises he could make were very loud tweets. Everyone had a good laugh when he entered the kitchen that morning. It had carried on until one of Sirius's pranks accidentally hit Lily. The thought of what Lily did to Padfoot still made harry wince, even months after it had happened. When Sirius had heard Lily shrieking at the top of her voice he first had thought it funny, that was until he saw her coming out of the living room, her face a neon orange, her wand in her hand, it spitting sparks of green and red. He had turned at once and transforming while he was running had tried to bolt through the front door in his haste to get to the apparition point to escape her wrath. Unfortunately for him, lily Potter's wand was faster and her spells very accurate, especially when she was pissed off. Consequent to say when everyone had made it to the door, Padfoot was hanging upside down by his tail, his hair on the ground, below him due to a shaving charm and painted the colours of the rainbow. The funny part of it was that the loss of hair had transferred over to his human form, so Sirius was bald for a week until Lily relented and cast a hair growth charm on his scalp. Since that time the pranks had lessened dramatically and were a lot more carefully planned to make sure that Lily especially would not be caught in them.

During this time he had also become a lot closer to Iris and his father, who had finally accepted that he had changed and that it wasn't so he could trick them to hurt or humiliate them. With his father all it had taken was one day, coming downstairs with the nimbus 1900 that he had been given for his previous Christmas, that by the look of it on the wall had never been touched and asking his father if he could teach him the basics of flying. The look of pure delight on James's face had been more than worth the small deception that he did not know how to fly. James had agreed straight away and in fact had taken the day off of work in order to teach his son how to fly. He had been impressed and delighted with the natural skill that Harry had shown after he had shown him the basics. By the end of the day they were doing all sorts of acrobatic and aerial stunts that made his mother cringe and hide her face in her hands with dread. Apart from the few grey hairs that his mother had developed from watching them both, the day had gone off wonderfully for both father and son. After that day, James and harry could be found sitting together some evenings debating the merits of quid ditch and recent matches that had occurred and discussing tactics. James had also promised he would teach Harry a more aggressive form of flying before he went to Hogwarts in preparation for him trying out for whichever house Harry made it into.

Iris had been a slower progression of trust and Harry could understand this. From what he could gather, Harry had focussed a lot on Iris when the other soul had inhabited his body, meaning she had probably borne the brunt of his abuses. So in this regard, he made a concerted effort in trying to win her over. Whenever they were in the same room, harry would try to engage her in conversation; whenever there was a discussion involving the family or even when Harry was discussing something with another person, he would always ask iris what her opinion was on the matter. Whenever he played with ivy, he would always ask iris if she wanted to join in with them, from reading books to Ivy, to playing hide and seek with the little red-head. At first iris had been very non-committal to his gestures, but slowly over a period of weeks, then months, she slowly began to warm up to him. When Iris's birthday had come up, he had gone all out and asked his mother for her help. Lily had been delighted and the results spoke for themselves.

**Flashback**

It was Iris's ninth birthday party and all of her friends had been invited. Harry had helped his parents all that morning to prepare the decorations and food for the party. Sirius and Remus had also turned up early to provide a hand and Lily kept a strict eye on them, particularly Sirius to make sure he didn't do anything that could upset the occasion through one of his pranks. Sirius though had been well-behaved, as he did not want to upset his god-daughter on her special day.

Iris, who was usually very mature for her now nine years of age, was for once acting like a little girl. Harry had never heard so much giggling and squealing his entire life until that day.

The first guests to arrive were the Greengrass family. Elaina Greengrass resembled her daughter Daphne even to the same colouring of the eyes. Although her eyes were the same colour though, Elaina's eyes showed a warmth and humour within them that was missing from her daughter's. She greeted Lily with a large hug and kiss on the cheek and turning to iris, hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, saying "happy birthday, Iris dear. Thank you for inviting Daphne and Astoria to your party. Daphne is happy to be here, aren't you dear?" When she asked this of her daughter, her lips twitched up in the corner, as if trying to supress a smile. Daphne, using the same ice-queen façade she had been famous for in Harry's previous life said in a perfect monotone "Yes iris, Thank you for inviting me to your party. I am thrilled to be here." Iris, obviously being used to her friend's peculiarities, hugged her and thanked her for coming. Just as Harry was wondering where her sister was, he saw the floo engage again and out stepped Sirus Greengrass, holding his daughter Astoria's hand. Sirus Greengrass was very tall and broad-shouldered, with a muscular build and had the traditional pureblood long-hair pulled back into a tail at the base of his skull. He had a pleasant disposition, much like his wife and Astoria was very much like her father, with dark hair and eyes and a tall, lithe figure for her age.

After greetings were done and other guests of the party arrived, the party began in earnest. Harry tried to introduce himself to a few of Iris's friends, but he could tell that a lot of them were either wary of him, through what iris had told them of him before, or were so smitten with his looks that all they did was either turn red and not be able to talk, or giggle hysterically to the point where he gave up. The only ones who were not like this were Daphne and her sister, Astoria. When he first had met Daphne, he held out his hand and said "Hi Daphne, I am iris's big brother, harry. It is nice to meet you." Daphne had looked at him for a moment and with no emotion showing on her face, she took his hand and shook it. Surprising her though, he turned her hand over and kissed the back of her hand on the knuckles, the way he knew that pureblood society dictated. While her facial features did not change, there was the lightest of blushes on her face, indicating he had managed to crack her mask a little.

Astoria was more direct than her sister and had boldly stepped up to him with a large smile on her face with her hand out already for him to kiss. He had chuckled at this and said "Hi there, my name is Harry." Once he had kissed her hand, Astoria's smile had widened and said "I'm Astoria. I am pleased to meet you too Harry. Although f this had been a couple of months ago, I don't know if I could have said the same thing." Iris's eyes had gone wide at this and she had visibly winced at what Harry could only assume were all the bad things she had said about him before. Harry had smiled and looking at both Astoria and Daphne, said "I no doubt deserved whatever Iris had said about me previously, but I have changed since my accident and I am truly sorry for what misery I caused her and my family in the past." With those words, he went to see if his mother needed any more help.

Later on, when the party began to wind down, he was carrying Ivy around on his chest as she was now very tired when his mother Lily called for everyone's attention. Walking over to her, he saw she was standing near the table where everyone had piled their presents for Iris. "Since the party is almost over, I thought it time that Iris opens her presents." Lily explained and iris ran forward, an eager gleam in her eyes. Soon there was a blizzard of wrapping paper surrounding her as she ripped into the presents with a child's abandon. Everyone knew of iris's love of books, especially her love of potions and magic, so the majority of her presents were books on both topics. After unwrapping the last present, she looked up at Harry with a hurt look in her eyes. Knowing what she was thinking, he smiled and said "Your present is inside the house. It was too large to be able to bring out here and mum suggested it was better to leave it where I have set it up for you. Follow me." With these words he led the whole group, with Iris at the front upstairs to the third floor. Upon reaching the potions lab, he opened the door and pointed over to the right side of the lab and said "Happy birthday, iris!" Iris, who had been the first into the room behind him, gasped in astonishment. Set up on the right side of the room was her own private potions lab, including cauldrons, stirring rods, and a professional potions brewer's cabinet. She went over and opened up the cabinet, and perused all of the ingredients in the cabinet and saw that it contained all of the ingredients she would want to use in making potions at least up to fifth year level. After closing the cabinet, iris turned back to her brother and asked breathlessly "How could you afford something like this?" Harry had just smiled and said "Apparently I had saved up a large amount of galleons when I received my allowance and only spent it on books and clothes. I had more than enough." Iris, who still couldn't believe the scope of the gift given to her, squealed in joy and flung her arms around her brother for what was really the first time, saying "Thank you, thank you!"

**End Flashback**

Since that tie if you ever wanted to find iris, you could usually find her either in the library, looking up new potions, or in her potions lab, brewing the latest potion she had discovered. Whenever she was out of either area though, she would often now be see with harry, talking about the latest potion she had discovered or asking his opinion on a certain topic. Even if she was reading in the living room at the same time he was, she would often lean against him while she did so. Harry himself couldn't be happier as he now fully felt part of the family. His heart and soul had been wanting the affection and love a family could provide for his whole life in his original reality, so this was like a balm to all of the wounds of the past. This meant that he not only gained his family's acceptance and love, but also thrived under the attention he was now paid. Smiling to himself as he got ready, he made his way downstairs to greet his family during his first holiday with a true family of his own.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Hi all. Thank you once more for the reviews. I now have looked at the results of the poll and decided that I am not yet at the point where I need to have the poll closed down as I have a few chapters to go yet until any kind of romance is started. A few people have stated that they do not want the sister to be involved. I understand this, but I will go with the majority, so if you do not wish a pairing between Harry and his sister, then vote for someone else to be the third pairing. I will not have romance very early on in the story at any rate as I believe that 11 years old is a bit young, however he will make a lot of friends who are females, so the options are still there.

Chapter 6.

It was late January when Harry discovered something in his room from the previous Harry's life. He had been tidying up on the bedside table, when he had knocked over an unlit candle and it had rolled under his four-poster bed. Not wanting to wander around in the dark under his bed, Harry had lifted the overhang that hid the underside of his bed and looked for where the candle had gotten to.

Upon looking, he noticed that there was a relatively clean spot under where his pillow was on top of the bed. After retrieving the candle and putting it back on his desk, he knelt down again to see what there was under the bed. After searching for a moment, Harry realised there was a floorboard that was loose, much like the one he used to have in his old room at the dursley's house.

Thinking for a moment and not wanting to activate any kind of boobby-trap or to be caught with something he had no idea about, but would look suspicious to someone if they came in when he was looking at it, he decided to get his parents involved. Being a weekday, his mother was the only adult in the house at the moment and he felt relatively safe asking her for her help as he knew with her unspeakable training she would be able to detect anything that had been set up previously to protect whatever it was beneath the floorboard.

Walking downstairs, he found his mother in the kitchen, tidying up from the breakfast preparations. Upon seeing Harry entering the room, she smiled at him, but then seeing the look on his face, Lily asked "Harry, what is it?" Not sure what to say other than the truth, he said in a quiet voice "I was tidying up in my room when I knocked a candle over and it rolled under my bed. When I retrieved it, I noticed that there was a clear patch from the dust under my bed. There appears to be a loose floorboard there and I don't know what is there, but I have a bad feeling about it. Can you help me look? I don't want to set off any kind of trap that may have been set there to protect whatever is there. I'm kind of scared as well mum to see what there is." Upon saying this, Harry's eyes teared up a little, thinking about what could possibly be beneath the floor in his room.

Lily upon hearing his words and seeing how distressed he was, did the only thing she could as a mother and drew him into a long and loving hug. She held him to herself until he had cried himself out. Once he had done so, she took hold of his shoulders and held him at arms-length from her in order to look into his eyes. He tried to avoid her gaze as he feared rejection, but Lily commanded softly "Harry, Look at me." Harry did so and seeing no recrimination in her eyes and only understanding looked slightly puzzled. Lily, seeing this, smiled and said "Whatever we find Harry, it is from the past. The fact that you came to me to look at this instead of ignoring it and trying to hide it speaks more of your character now than your changes since the accident. I am glad you trust me enough to come to me for help. However, whatever we do find, will only be between us and I promise no matter what it is, I will not hold it against you. The person who put whatever it is beneath the floor is a different person and not the wonderful son I have now." When Lily finished speaking these words of comfort, she once again drew harry into her embrace and ran her hands through his hair, comforting him as he once again cried, but this time in relief. Even though harry was 17 when he was killed in his previous life, he was stunted as a human being and really was still a young child trying to find acceptance from his family, especially his mother.

After a few more minutes, Lily broke the embrace and taking his hand, led him up to his room. Harry held tightly onto her hand, not wanting to ever let go from the lifeline it represented. When they arrived at his room, lily took her wand out of her jeans pocket and motioned for Harry to stand behind her. She walked over to his bedand shrunk it down and moved it over to the far corner so it was not obstructing her while she investigated. Seeing the area where the dust was absent, Lily began a series of intricate wand movements. After a few minutes a glow came from beneath the floorboard and Lily said to harry in a grim voice "It was a good thing you did come to me. There is a spring-loaded trap beneath the board that if you removed the floorboard without disarming would shoot a knife that appears to be cursed. Lily conjured a thick block of wood in front of herself she then motioned with her wand and the floorboard rose up into the air.

As soon as the board had cleared the rest of the floor a black shape darted out from beneath the floor and hit the block of wood with a dull thunking noise. Lily waved her wand again at the hole to make sure there were no other traps and then vanished the block of wood, leaving the knife to fall the few inches that it had impaled itself into the wooden block. Harry realised with a sick feeling in his stomach that the knife was approximately where his head would have been had he been under the bed and lifting the board manually.

Waving her wad over the knife for a moment, Lily frowned and then said "If this knife hadn't killed you outright, it would have permanently blinded the person it cut, so I am very thankful you came to me." Stepping up to the hole in the floor, Lily looked in and seeing only one object in there, levitated it out onto the floor in front of the bedside table. Once she had done so, she moved the bed back into position and expanded it once more. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she motioned for Harry to sit next to her. Picking up the book, she showed it to Harry.

Harry noticed it was a large book with a leather binding with a lock across the thickness of the pages. There wasn't a key to the lock and he gathered it was locked with some sort of magic. Lily waved her wand over it and it glowed a deep red. Looking at his mother questioningly as to what it meant, Lily explained "This book is locked with blood. It means only the person who it is bonded to can open it. Knowing it was probably locked to himself, harry held out his hand in open invitation. Lily, seeing this held her wand against his finger and slid it across, drawing blood. Lily let the blood carefully drip into the clasp then healed the cut on Harry's finger. The clasp glowed for a moment and then opened.

Lily opened the book and began leafing through the pages with harry leaning against her so he could read the contents as well. It was a catalogue of horrors done to not only his family, but to other people within the village as well as animals the other Harry had tortured in the past. Each event was dated with a memento taped into place if at all possible. Harry couldn't help but feel sickened at this revelation. Lily, seeing the expression on his face, suggested "Perhaps it would be best harry if you didn't read through this." Harry shook his head stubbornly and said softly "No mum, you don't understand. I need to see all of it. I need to know exactly what I have done in the past so I can keep it in my mind to make sure I am never like that again. I can't learn from this if I never know about it." Lily wanted to protect her son from this, but his words made sense to her. She marvelled at the fact that he was so mature about this. Harry and his mother spent the next couple of hours going through the book as it was very extensive.

At the end of going through the book, Harry was pale, but he had maintained his composure throughout the whole process. Inside, he was physically sick at the fact the soul formally in this body had done so much to so many people. He could clearly see though that the majority of actions that caused harm were done towards his sister Iris. He resolved to himself that he would make this up to her by being not only the best big brother he could be to her, but also the best friend she could have as well.

Lily was also horrified to know all of the things she and James had suspected over the years were true of the former Harry but that there was so much more that they had not discovered that he had done. The level of cruelty, particularly to his sister and to the poor animals that had the misfortune to come across Harry was beyond belief. It was a miracle, Lily thought to herself that Iris had warmed up to Harry at all after the accident. She could also tell that the information from this book had struck harry deeply and that he was as shocked as she was, if not more so as he had no idea about the actions his former self had done due to his memory loss. She also saw the resolve in his eyes and asked him what he was thinking. "I just know that I have a lot to make up to all of you, but especially iris."

After both had finished with the book, they went out into the rear of the house and setting the book down on the ground, Harry turned to his mother and asked her in an almost pleading voice "Please burn it." Lily couldn't deny her son this as she knew it was something while desperate to get rid of the material evidence of, would haunt him in his mind from now on what he had done before his accident. She pointed her wand at the book and murmured a fire spell, causing a large jet of blue flame to flow from her wand and impact the book. It appeared to have minimal fire resistance, but the flames proved to be too intense and within a few minutes, the book was nothing more than ash. Lily then waved her wand and vanished the ashes and repaired the lawn where it had been scorched by the spell she had cast. Harry sighed with relief once the book was destroyed, but wiped his hand over his face as he for the first time, had come into contact with the true evil that his former self was. He hoped that this was the last unpleasant surprise he would receive. To make sure of this, he asked his mother to thoroughly check his room to see if there were any more hidden spaces within his room he had not discovered.

In the end there was a small mound of illicit items that Lily had gathered from different cubby holes in his bedroom. There were various weapons, most of them knives, luckily most were not cursed, but there were also books, the majority of which were from the black family library as each one had been tagged by the previous harry as to the date and origin of the books original home. Lily said she would return the books to Sirius discreetly, but Harry insisted that he return them to him in front of the family, so they knew that he was truly sorry. Lily agreed as long as he allowed her to destroy the weapons without anyone's knowledge. She was not certain if the family's trust would go as far as to trust someone who had a small arsenal hidden in his walls with which he could have harmed any one of them. Harry reluctantly agreed after she had explained her position and so she vanished the weapons.

Later that night when the family were all in attendance, Sirius and Remus arrived through the floo as Lily had invited them earlier in the day, unbeknownst to Harry though, she had talked to Sirius, Remus and James about not only the books that harry had wanted to return but also the book they had found under the floorboard which had first sparked the search and Harry's reaction to it. All three men were saddened to hear how upset Harry was, but also respected Harry's need to know what he had done in the past to use as a sort of reference point as to how bad he could go if he were to let himself. Therefore Harry was quite surprised when Sirius accepted the books back with a gentle thankyou and a hug for Harry. Harry's confusion was quite evident on his face and Sirius, seeing this, explained "Harry, you don't remember taking these books do you?" harry shook his head silently. "Exactly. You also don't remember being the person who did this. It would be wrong of me to blame you for something that you first of all don't remember and secondly are very unlikely to do as the person you are now, am I right?" harry nodded, still remaining silent. Harry was surprised when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning, he saw it was his father who had a reassuring look on his face. "I'm proud of you Harry. Even though you are not the person who did this in a fundamental way, you still were willing to own up for the wrong that was committed and honest enough to return the items." James then pulled harry into a hug that was both loving and reassuring.

After James pulled back from the hug, Harry turned to Iris who was sitting on the sofa and taking her hand he pulled her gently to her feet. Iris looked a little unsure as to what Harry wanted as she had nothing to do with the books and never even knew he had them. Taking both of her hands in his, Harry said softly "mum and I also found a book in my room which listed everything that I had done to everyone here and some others. It looked like most of the things I had done though were to you." At this revelation, Harry felt Iris flinch slightly as if in remembered pain. Squeezing her hands gently, Harry said "Iris, I am so sorry for everything I have done to you in the past. I know I don't remember and that I would never do anything to you like that the way I am now, but I have hurt you in the past with these hands. Please, can you forgive me?"

Iris, was stunned to hear this from Harry. She had been sure over the years that her brother had been responsible for a lot of the 'accidents' she had suffered. After a few months of experiencing this new harry though, she had been willing to let bygones be bygones as she knew this Harry didn't remember what he had done to her and from the way he acted, would be horrified at what she suspected he had done. Knowing that he had found out caused a strange reaction to Iris. Instead of being angry with him, she actually felt sorry that he found out what he had previously had done as it was obvious he was truly upset by what had been done to her. Seeing his hurt and his sincerity, she drew him into a long and loving hug. As she did so, she whispered in his ear "I forgive you Harry. Please don't be upset anymore." Harry clung to iris and tears welled from his eyes as his mind revisited what he had read. Iris held him, stroking his back and cooed softly to him. It was truly at this moment that iris began to love her brother for the first time as a sibling.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Thanks everyone for the reviews, it's appreciated. This will be the final chapter before harry goes shopping for school supplies, so not long now.

Chapter 7.

Harry was expecting his Hogwarts letter any day now. He knew it had appeared a few weeks before his birthdayin his original reality, but wasn't too sure on the exact date so it was a waiting game that he was engaged in. He was currently sitting in the living room with his two sisters. He had a book about spell creation in his hand as after talking to his mother, he had developed an interest in the field. His sister Iris had a potions monthly magazine in her hand.

Harry had learned the hard way and quite painfully that trying to get Iris' attention when she was reading something she was interested in was virtually impossible unless you did something drastic. He had come down one morning and found her in the dining room, reading a book that she seemed to be thoroughly engrossed in. He had tried to get her attention for at least five minutes before he had bellowed her name in order to get her attention. Iris had been so surprised that she had thrown her book across the room and nearly fallen off of her chair. The problem for Harry was her instinctive reaction and that fact that he apparently was too close to her. She swung her fist in the direction of the noise and managed to sock Harry in the eye, blackening it severely. Harry had ended up on the floor on his butt with a swelling and purpling eye.

Iris had been very apologetic once she had gotten over her scare and realised what she had done to Harry. She had helped him into a seat as his balance was not so good and had fetched a cold cloth to put over the eye. Lily had heard the commotion and had quickly come downstairs to see what the fuss was about. She had found her son sitting in a seat instead of preparing breakfast like he usually did and holding a cloth to what appeared to be a magnificent black eye. His sister was hovering over him with an immensely guilty look on her face, especially when she saw her mother.

Lily had only laughed when she had heard what had happened and after casting a spell to heal Harry's eye, had related an incident that was quite similar in her seventh year at Hogwarts. Apparently she had been in the transfiguration courtyard and had been reading a book on arithmency at the time and had been so absorbed she had not noticed when James had arrived. After twenty minutes of him trying to gain her attention, he had tried something similar to harry, with a similar result, though James had to go to the hospital wing with a concussion. From that tie onward, Harry made sure if he disturbed Iris to be standing back at a distance, just in case.

Ivy was sitting on the floor, playing with the black and white kitten that harry had bought her for her birthday in April. He had been shopping with his mother in Diagon Alley and not sure what to get his little sister for her birthday. He wanted it to be something special as he knew that his former self had never given anyone anything and he had given Iris a large present for her previous birthday. After looking through a dozen different shops and not finding anything, they had been passing the pet store when a little black and white ball of fluff had run into Harry's legs and climbed him like a tree until it was sitting in his arms. Looking down at his attacker, he had seen a black kitten with a white bib and a white stripe from the middle of its head, running down its back. It looked at him with big blue eyes and Harry knew instantly he had found the present for his sister. The shop assistant who had come running out from the pet shop had been apologetic when she saw that the cat had decided to take up residence in his arms, but he soon allayed her fears and delighted her with the news that he was buying the kitten. Apparently the feline was a great escape artist and this was only the latest one of its attempts for freedom. Upon hearing this, lily also purchased a runic collar which allowed the cat freedom throughout the house, but would not be able to leave the wards of a home unless it was in the company of a human.

He knew he had found the perfect gift when Ivy had opened up the box the kitten was in and first laid eyes on her present. Her eyes had gone wide and a smile had lit up her face. Taking the cat out gently, the rest of the world was lost to ivy for the next two hours as she fussed and petted the kitten in her arms. The hug of thanks that Harry received later though was the most enthusiastic he had ever received from Ivy and it left a smile on his face for the rest of the day. Harry had discovered why the shop assistant had been so delighted the next morning when he was making his way downstairs and was suddenly attacked from a hidden position by the cat from above. Luckily, he was only a few steps from the bottom of the stairs so the fall did not hurt too greatly, it was more his pride that suffered the blow on being ambushed. Soon enough no person within the house was safe from the ninja cat as Harry nicknamed her. Ivy in a moment of genius decided her cat's name was trouble. Everyone couldn't help but agree.

His relationship with iris had grown stronger over the last few months, but had become as close as they could be when an incident had occurred when they had both gone to Diagon alley for the day. James had been at work and Lily and Ivy had been invited to the Greengrass estate for the day. Iris hadn't wanted to go as the two Greengrass sisters had been visiting relatives for two weeks. Noticing that Iris had looked disgruntled that her friends were not there, Harry quickly thought of an alternative to cheer her up.

Looking at their mother who was getting ready to go, he asked her "Is it okay if Iris and I go to Diagon Alley?" Iris upon hearing Harry's request, started jumping up and down in excitement and began to plead "Please mum, can we go?" Seeing the look of hope in both of their eyes, Lily easily relented as she had come to trust Harry a great deal over the last few months. She could see how much Harry cared for Ivy and iris and knew he would do anything to protect them both.

"Okay, you can both go. You need to stay within diagon alley though, alright?" Both her children nodded at this admonishment. Lily looking at Harry asked him "harry please keep an eye on iris. She has never been to the alley before without an adult." Harry, his face becoming serious, said "Don't worry mum, I'll protect her." Lily smiled and gathering everything and picking up Ivy, bid her children farewell and flooed to the Greengrass estate.

Iris had raced up stairs in order to get ready, and harry, remembering the punch and not wishing to earn his sister's wrath, followed her quickly to get ready himself. Ten minutes later, both children were ready. Harry flooed first and came tumbling out of the fireplace in his usual graceful manner, causing laughter from the Leaky Cauldron's patrons. As Harry lay on the floor, he heard the floo flare behind him and he could tell his sister had arrived by the giggles that emanated from behind him. Grumbling to himself and cursing whoever had invented this particular form of travel, Harry climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. Looking at his sister, he could see the tears of mirth in her eyes at his plight. Deciding on a mature response, he poked his tongue out at her as he then turned and made his way to a corner booth.

Iris had another bout of giggles at her brother's response and made her way to the same booth and sat next to him, rather than across from him and took his hand almost shyly. Iris had found herself becoming closer to her brother over the last few months as she accepted he had changed for good and on his public apology to her. She now spent almost all of her time in his company and the only regret she had, which she sometimes felt bad about, was that his accident hadn't happened earlier so she could have had this relationship with her big brother even sooner.

Harry smiled and squeezed her hand gently and began asking her about what interested her in the alley. It was really no surprise when he heard that both the apothecary and the book stores in the alley were her most popular haunts. He was surprised to hear that she often also went into the second-hand shop and the junk shop as there were often old books there that held knowledge that may have been forgotten throughout the years. After they had eaten breakfast at the cauldron they asked Tom to let them into the alley, which he did so with a toothless smile.

Both harry and iris decided to start their exploration at the far end of the alley and work their way back towards the cauldron throughout the day. As they were on their way to the far end, they passed the shadowed entrance of Nocturne Alley. There was usually not much activity towards this end of the alley from Harrys previous experience so did not think much of passing the entrance as there were quite a few people within Diagon Alley at this time of the morning.

Without warning, a hand shot out from the darkness, grabbing Iris by the back of her top and almost dragged both her and Harry into the alley's depths. Harry reaction on instinct, grabbed his sister around the waist and taking hold of the hand squeezed hard. In his rage he did not realise he was squeezing far too hard for a boy his age and only later did he come to realise that his physical training had begun to give him the benefits that Yama had promised him. The bones within the hand in his grip splintered and the fingers suddenly let go of his sister. He quickly thrust her into the middle of the alley and with a violent twist, he snapped the wrist of the person who had dared to grab his sister.

There was an almost inhuman scream of pain at both actions and the person dropped to their knees. Harry, his adrenalin still pumping and his rage still simmering, dragged the individual into the middle of Diagon alley. It turned out to be a hag that had tried to abduct his sister and Harry was about to start laying into her with his feet, when an auror who had been summoned by one of the shop-keepers arrived and asked what had happened. There were plenty of spectators around who had seen the hag holding onto the back of iris's top and Harry's response, within a short amount of time the auror had summoned another of his brethren to take the hag into custody while he collected memories from the witnesses. A healer on standby also arrived and assessed the children. Finding that they weren't harmed other than being a little shaken up in the case of Iris and Harry suffering the after effects of his adrenalin rush, administered a calming draught to both of them, which they took gratefully. Upon recognising who the children were, the auror asked them if they wished him to contact their father in the auror office and Harry declined, saying they would be either within the apothecary or book stores for the rest of the day and would keep a wide berth from the entrance to nocturne. The auror, whose name was Edwards, nodded and congratulated Harry on his takedown of the hag and disappeared back to the auror office with a pop to make his report.

Harry led iris to the book store near Gringots which was smaller than Flourish and Blots, but sometimes had a wider selection of volumes. After helping iris to select a book from the potions section, harry helped Iris to sit down and he stayed next to her, a book on occlumency in his hand. After a few minutes of silence as they both took a look at their books, Iris turned to harry and asked "Harry?"

Looking up at his sister and seeing the seriousness in her eyes, harry said "yeah iris?" Putting down her book, Iris leaned forward and hugged Harry tightly, saying into his shoulder "Thank you for saving me!" Even though iris had taken the calming draught, it was still evident to Harry that she was shaken up. Harry held Iris fiercely to him as he felt her shake in his arms and a few tears flow onto his shirt. He rocked her gently for a little while until she calmed down and then he answered her thanks "You never have to thank me for protecting you iris. I'll protect you against anyone who tries to hurt you. Anyone who thinks of doing so will deeply regret it!" he said this with such fierceness that iris looked up and saw a fierce protectiveness combined with a strong love for her. She laid her head against his shoulder for a few more minutes, soaking up the comfort and then wiping her eyes, took up her book again and began to read. Harry, seeing his sister was now fine, did so as well.

Unknown to harry, the story of his protecting of his sister had spread throughout the alley's shop-keepers and for the rest of the day, they kept an eye on the two children as they explored the different shops. When lunchtime came and they returned to the cauldron, Tom was solicitous to them and asked if they were alright, as he had heard about the attempted kidnapping. Both Harry and Iris were grateful for his care and that of the shop keepers, but decided after lunch to head home as the incident had been tiring on them both.

When they arrived home, they found that their mother had beaten them only by a few minutes. Seeing the look in their eyes, Lily asked what had happened. Harry, seeing that remembering the incident was freaking Iris out a little, explained the situation in as succinct a manner as possible. Lily held both children in her arms after she had heard what had happened, making sure they were both okay. Iris decided them to have a lay down as the calming draught had made her a little drowsy and lily let her go. Harry, who was still In his mother's arms looked up at his mother as she said to him "Thankyou harry for protecting your sister. I am very proud of you." With this she placed a kiss on his head. Harry blushed a little and repeated what he had said to iris when she had thanked him.

Harry was brought back from his recollections by a tapping at the window. Looking up, he saw that there was an owl with a letter tied to its leg. With a jolt of excitement he surged to his feet and threw open the window to get the owl in, hearing a snicker behind him from iris at his excitement. Lily, hearing the noise walked in from the rear of the house to see the owl fly in and land on the table. Everyone could see the Hogwarts crest on the letter and Lily said with excitement "Oh Harry, it's your Hogwarts letter!" Harry, whose fingers were shaking from the excitement took almost twice as long as normal to untie the letter. The owl, who was thoroughly annoyed at his slowness, clicked its beak at him, then flew back out of the window.

Harry ripped open the letter and looked through the sheets of parchment. It was exactly the same as his original letter. Meeting his mother and sister's eyes with a broad smile, he said "I guess we need to go shopping!"


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thank you all for the reviews, they are always appreciated. Thank you to all who are following and who have favourited my story as well.

Chapter 8.

It had been decided by consensus that the shopping at Diagon Alley would be done the following day so they had the entire day to do the shopping. Harry invited Iris to come with them and she happily agreed. Ivy pouted as Harry hadn't asked her until he swung her into his arms, saying "Of course my favourite munchkin is coming with us!" eliciting giggles from the munchkin in question. Sirius and Remus, upon hearing that they were going Hogwarts shopping and remembering what had happened when harry and iris had gone into the alley themselves, invited themselves along as James was unable to get time off of work.

Sirius and Remus flooed through to Gringots first, followed by Harry and iris. Harry once again landed on his face, which Sirius found quite humorous. "Real smooth pup!" He laughed as Harry picked himself off of the floor to the giggles of Iris, "If you are any smoother you'd crack your skull!" After dusting himself off and tucking his curtain of hair behind his ears, Harry looked up at Sirius with mischief in his eyes and responded back smartly "At least I'm smooth enough not to try and hump anything female and over the age of 16 who had a pretty face, or try to pee on any fire hydrant I may pass!" It was to the scene of Harry and Remus laughing hysterically, leaning on each other to hold themselves up with Iris giggling at them and the look of utter shock on Sirius's face that lily arrived.

"What's going on?" She asked curiously. Seeing that three of the people she asked the question to were still too busy laughing while Sirius still appeared to be in shock, she continued asking questions "Let me guess as soon as you arrived, Sirius saw a pretty girl and tried to come-on to her?" This statement caused the three who had started to settle down to erupt into fresh laughter and Sirius to begin pouting. Seeing this as a validation of her theory, Lily began to scold Sirius, saying "Sirius, you may be like a brother to me, but you need to realise that not every woman you are going to meet is going to think you are god's gift to women!" Sirius, beginning to get over his shock began to sputter "But I didn't! I wasn't!" He shut up when he saw the look of utter scepticism on Lily's face and turning to the three who once again had begun to calm down, he said "You three suck, you know that?"

Lily went to get some gold from the Potter family vault while the four of them stayed behind in the foyer, harry holding Ivy in his arms. "So are you looking forward to Hogwarts?" Remus asked Harry. Harry thought about it for a moment and said truthfully "I must say I am not looking forward to it as much as I thought I would." Seeing the look of shock on everyone's faces, he continued by saying "Over the last year I have really come to know everyone well and I am going to miss everyone when I go to Hogwarts, that's why I'm not too eager to go." Sirius, Remus and Iris nodded, iris with a troubled look upon her face. Ivy, who did not understand about Hogwarts yet, just continued to play with Harry's long hair. Harry had often noticed that most women, particularly the ones in his family could not help but play with his hair when he was in their vicinity and they weren't occupied with something else. He had even noticed that some of Iris's friends when they came over on occasion tended to gravitate to playing with his hair that is when they weren't blushing or giggling at him. The only one who seemed to be able to resist was Daphne, with her stoic façade. This encouraged Harry to engage her in conversation every time she came over to try and crack through the mask. Consequently, he and Daphne had become good friends and he hoped they would continue to be friends at Hogwarts.

Lily arrived back soon enough and they made their way out of the bank and headed toward Madame malkin's robes for all occasions. While Harry knew that you could go to a more up-market clothiers such as Twillfitt and Tattings, he had never found anything to complain about at Madame Malkins and she had always been friendly to him in his past.

It seemed that his reputation in the alley for protecting his sister was still in shop-keeper's memories, for when he entered Madame Malkins, Madame Malkin herself, dressed in the mauve robes he remembered, came forward herself and greeted Harry personally. "Mr. Potter, it is so good to see you. I gather you are doing your shopping for your first year at Hogwarts?" Harry smiled at Madame Malkin and taking her hand, kissed the back of it, saying "Indeed I am Madame, can you perchance dress me in the latest Hogwarts fashions?" Madam Malkin, surprised at his manner, laughed and turning to Lily, said "Oh my dear I see you are going to have trouble with this one with the ladies." Lily for her part looked absolutely shocked that Harry had the audacity to flirt with Madame Malkin and the fact that he had managed to charm her as well. She could feel a headache coming on at the thought of how much trouble he could get into with his looks which are even better than James, but with the same attitude towards women that James had had during his school years. Deciding to have a talk with her son after their shopping trip, Lily smiled and nodded at Madame malkin's comment.

Remus for his part, had very similar thoughts to Lily and could only imagine the howlers Lily would be receiving from aggravated parents of daughters at Hogwarts who had come under Harry's attentions. Iris looked as if she had been hit over the head by Harry's actions as she had never seen her brother flirt with a female before. To be honest it reminded her slightly of her Uncle Padfoot, but Harry somehow did it with more class. It was Sirius who had the most evident reaction. He had a broad smile on his face as he looked proudly upon his godson. "Well I think it is official ladies and gentlemen!" Sirius proclaimed to his family "there is going to be a new Casanova in Hogwarts and his name is harry potter!" Lily groaned out loud at the thought and Sirius, either not hearing her or ignoring her, continued, talking directly to harry "You know part of my god fatherly duties was to teach you how to talk to a woman, but here we are and I find you not only know how to talk to a woman, you can charm older women too. I am so proud!"

Harry, hearing this, shook his head and said "Padfoot, I merely treat women with the respect they deserve. After all they are someone else's mother or sister. Unlike you, I don't have the urge to find out what is under every pair of knickers I come across!" upon saying this, he turned and followed a bemused Madame Malkin to the fitting area, leaving a red-faced Sirius Black, who was surrounded by laughing women and a werewolf almost howling with laughter at the look on his face. Harry could also tell that his mother appeared relieved for some reason at his words, but thought nothing of it as he stepped up onto a stool and Madame Malkin began pinning his robes. He chatted lightly with the matronly woman while she worked and kept absolutely still so as to avoid being pricked by the pins she was using. Harry asked about Madame Malkin's years at Hogwarts while she worked and she happily filled his ear with her years through the school in Ravenclaw house. At first he was surprised she was a Ravenclaw, suspecting more of her being a Hufflepuff, but on consideration he realised it would take quite a bit of intelligence to run a successful business and come up with the way she worked her charms to make the outfits she did.

When she concluded with his fitting, she informed him that his uniforms would be ready in two hours. Harry smiled and stepped down, saying "Thank you Madame, for your wonderful work and service today. I truly appreciate your work and the information you have given me about Hogwarts." Madame Malkin's smile broadened and she replied "Please come again, anytime Mr. Potter. I rarely have many boys your age who not only know their manners, but also use them so well." Harry thanked her again and joined his family, who were waiting by the door. Taking his sister's hand as they left, Harry turned to his mother and asked "Mum, can we go and get a trunk next? I know I'll probably be getting a lot of books, so a trunk next would probably be a good idea." Lily upon consideration of her son's words, agreed, so they made their way to the trunk store.

Harry ended up purchasing a four-compartment trunk that was a deep blue with brass fittings. The first compartment was a normal trunk compartment that just expanded to twice the normal size. The second compartment was a wardrobe unit that actually rose out of the trunk and held all the clothes on hangers to prevent creasing and came with drawers for all other clothing. The third compartment was a library section which rose out of the compartment and consisted of a bookshelf with a lever which enables the owner of the trunk to store more than would fit on just the one shelf. This allowed the owner to store up to 500 books within this compartment. The fourth compartment was a potions compartment, where ingredients, cauldrons and finished potions were stored. It had a preservation charm on the entire compartment which enabled the ingredients to last longer. Harry also convinced his mother to allow him to also have a rune installed on his trunk which enabled him to shrink his trunk just by placing a finger on it.

The next stop for Harry was the apothecary as his mother knew he would take a long time in the book store as his study habits had become evident to everyone in Potter manor. Harry was once again greeted by the owner of the apothecary warmly and they then engaged in a conversation regarding the ingredients required for a first-year potions kit. Harry queried on whether it was better for himself to gather the ingredients and whether the shop-keeper had any suggestions as to what he should purchase to make his time in his potions class any easier, as he knew that Snape would not be kind to any of the Potter children. The owner confessed that what Hogwarts required for first year potions was the bare minimum required and that he suggested getting an extra scoop of each ingredient in case any mistakes were made during his potions classes. He also suggested a better quality of knives and scales for his ingredients which were likely to last the entire 7 years at Hogwarts as well as a guide to ingredient interactions that he kept behind the counter, but which most students did not seem to be interested in. In the end Harry's potions kit cost half again as much as the original kit, but contained far more that would be helpful for him in potions. Lily was happy to pay the extra as she could see that harry had received a better deal for following the advice of the apothecary owner. She was proud that her son was able to ask advice and listened when it was someone who obviously had more knowledge than he did on a particular subject.

By this time it was lunchtime and so the party made their way to the cauldron for their midday meal. After a lunch of fish and chips with butter-beer to drink, Lily decided that the book store would be the last stop on their itinerary so it would give Harry the most time to select his books. Therefore they made their way to olivanders wand shop. They all crowded into the front of the shop and waited for olivander to make his appearance. Suddenly, harry whipped around and said "Good afternoon, sir." Everyone was surprised, including olivander who had been about to greet the child in front of him, causing the usual scare that he enjoyed doing to the first-year children. "Good afternoon Mr. Potter. Let's see if we can find you your companion today." With this he directed his tape-measure to begin measuring every aspect of Harry's form. Harry, having studied his magic extensively over the last year was able to detect his aura somewhat and could see that the magical tape measure was actually taking measurements of the amount of magic he was producing. He could see a link back to Olivander and realised this was how olivander selected the different wands for a person to try.

After a few minutes, Olivander directed the tape-measure to stop and he brought forward an arm-load full of wand boxes which he laid upon the counter. Walking around to face harry, he took down the first box and the ordeal began. An hour and a half later, Harry was still trying out wands and everyone was beginning to wonder if he would actually find a wand. Harry suspected that his companion this time around would not be a holly and phoenix as he was not a living horcrux and the child of prophecy. He found he was correct when Olivander with a sigh, said "It looks like Mr. Potter that your companion has not yet been made. I will need to take a sample of your magic and blood and I will then make your wand." Taking out a glass ball, olivander directed Harry to hold the ball in his right hand. Within a few seconds the ball began to glow and very soon it was glowing a brilliant white inn colour. Olivander then pricked one of Harry's fingers with a needle and withdrew several drops of blood into a small vial. "Very well. Your wand will cost 20 galleons as it needs to be custom-made." Lily stepped forward and paid the money and Harry walked out followed by his family.

Rather than go straight to Flourish and Blotts, Harry headed back to the book shop he and iris had been heading to the day the hag had attacked iris. While they did not have the Hogwarts book list, Harry picked up several volumes on theories on transfiguration and charms as well as a beginners guide to occlumency as the book he had been reading the day before had proved a bit too advanced for him. He also grabbed a few more books on defence against the dark arts as he knew that it would basically be a self-study course for this year and if he got Lockhart the following year, it would be so again. He then grabbed a half-dozen books on magical history as Harry had been completely turned off of history in his original reality thanks to the ghostly teacher and his apparent obsession with goblin rebellions. Therefore he picked up books on wizarding wars over the last 2000 years and on great wizards throughout the millennia. Harry made sure to get particularly history books in history since Binz had died as it was obvious he had not updated his teaching since that time and thus Harry was missing out on knowing original history. After his mother paid for the books, he had placed them in his library shelf for later sorting.

The group made their way down the alley towards the largest book store in the alley. Before they could get there though, harry felt a large pull on his magic from the pet shop they were passing. Harry had never been into this shop before and from the look on Sirius, Remus and lily's faces, they had never actually seen the shop before. Walking almost in a trance, Harry walked through the entrance of the shop and headed towards the rear. He saw that the pull was actually coming from a large egg that was in some kind of magical incubator. Walking up to it, he began to examine it and therefore did not see where the shop-keeper came from. "Hello young sir. How may I help you this day?" An elderly man said from behind Harry. Harry had been so engrossed in his examination of the egg that he jumped and whirled around. The elderly man smiled apologetically and repeated his question. Harry after calming himself, asked "Can you tell me what this egg is sir? I feel a pull from it." The man's eyes widened at this news and looking at the egg he muttered "Very curious." Looking at the young man more fully as if judging him worthy, the man finally began to explain "What you have their young sir, is a Griffin egg. An adventurer witnessed its parents protecting it from an adult dragon in the mountains of Romania. Unfortunately both parents died protecting it, so the adventurer decided in order to honour the two creature's bravery, he would bring the egg to me so that I may be able to find a person to be able to care for it."

Harry was shocked that this was a Griffin. He had read about the creature in his magical creatures textbooks, but had never known of one being sold in a pet shop of all places. "How much would you want for it sir?" He asked. The man looked grave and said "For this egg, I would have to ask for no less than 70 galleons. It is a very rare creature and I must be sure that the person values it as much as it should be." Sinking his shoulders in disappointment, Harry thanked the man and turned away from the egg and walked out of the store. He therefore did not notice that his mother spent a few more minutes than necessary inside the store.

Harry spent a good hour inside Flourish and Blotts and bought nearly three dozen books ranging through the magical arts. He bought his core textbooks of course, but also decided to buy Hogwarts a history as Hermione had always found it useful throughout the years. He also bought several different books on potions and even more books on different types of transfiguration and charms as well as books on household charms and a beginner's guide to duelling. Harry decided he would have to make a trip into Nocturne alley to see if he could find any other bookstores. He was sure that a lot of the magic here in Diagon Alley was tightly regulated by the ministry and he did not want to hold himself back simply because some bureaucrat had decided that a spell was unacceptable. He would examine the spell himself and determine if it was dark or not. After all he had the experience from his past life to tell him if a spell was dark or not.

Deciding he had had enough for one day, he asked his mother if they could go home now as he had everything that was required on the Hogwarts list. Lily, who was quite tired from the full day of shopping herself agreed and informing the others, they all trooped back to the leaky cauldron and flooed home. Harry took all of his packages upstairs and organised them within his trunk and then came down for dinner. He was quiet for the meal, only talking when asked a question, his mind on the strange pull he had received from that egg and the story the man had told him about how it was found. Everyone noticed this, including James, but lily caught his eye and motioned she would explain what had happened later after dinner. Harry decided to have an early night so went to his bedroom shortly after dinner, leaving Lily to explain to James the strange incident in the mysterious shop. Once James had heard the explanation and his wife's plans, he smiled, saying "I'm surprised that a bond would be created in a boy as young as harry. Don't worry though Lily, it is completely legal if the bond is recognised and no one, not even the Ministry of magic can separate them if that happens."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: hello everyone. Once again thank you for the reviews, it inspires me to write more. I had a few reviews about a few grammatical errors I have made i.e. spelling mistakes for certain names and sometimes I do not capitalise names. I am actually legally blind and use adaptive technology in order to be able to use a computer. It is not perfect however and sometimes I do miss things such as capitalisations and sometimes I need to guess the spellings of certain names. If you can bear with this small imperfection, I hope you still enjoy my story.

The poll is now closed for the pairing as I am now weaving the characters into the story. I do not believe in love at first sight as I have never witnessed such a thing, at least not a long-term relationship. Therefore friendships will begin and develop from there. With 22% of the vote the first pairing is harry/Daphne greengrass. His second pairing with a result of 18% of the vote is Susan Bones. The final pairing, even though I have had a couple of people begging me not to have this pairing is his sister Iris with 15% of the vote. Now just because these are the pairings does not mean there will be much in the way of romance for a couple of years at least as 11 is way too young in my opinion and as I said, friendships will develop first.

Chapter 9.

It was Harry's eleventh birthday and his parents had gone all out in celebrating his birthday as it was the first birthday of his they could really celebrate as a family. He had learned from the journal he and his mother had found that Harry's previous self deliberately had chosen to be elsewhere on each of his birthdays that he could manoeuvre to get away. All others he had either feigned illness, made someone else ill or just completely ruin the event.

Harry had been in the very awkward situation of not having any friends other than those his sister Iris had, as anyone his former self had known as friends, which he doubted he had any as Snape would have look cheerful compared to the malevolence that the other Harry had been. Therefore he had asked that the girls that Iris had invited to her party that had not been rabid giggling airheads be invited to his party. This consisted of the Greengrass sisters, Astoria and Daphne along with their parents, Susan Bones and her friend Hannah Abbott along with Amelia Bones, Padma Patel and her sister Parvarty along with their parents, although Parvarty was more for manners because her sister was the actual reason for her invite. Along with these people, Harry had specifically asked that Minerva McGonagall and Fillius Flitwick be invited to his party for a very specific reason. He had specifically asked his mother and father to make sure that the two professors would be coming to his party and told them that this was to make amends for his past behaviour to them. They had accepted this, but both had known that he was planning something.

Ivy had been nearly manic in her excitement to celebrate her big brother's birthday and had been enthusiastic enough to wake him up at 5 AM by jumping on him in order to begin the celebrations early. Lily had scolded her for waking the entire house by her excited squeals of happy birthday to her brother, but Harry could tell that his mother was quite excited herself, even if she concealed it better. Iris was almost as excited as her mother was, but held it in admirably as well, although the giggly girl did not make a reappearance, she did laugh a lot more that morning as they set up for the party in the afternoon. Remus lupin had been his usual calm and reserved self, although his smile had been more genuine and happier at seeing how happy his pack was at this celebration. Sirius was, well, Sirius. He had been pulling small pranks on everyone all morning until a spectacular joint effort from trouble the cat and Lily Potter had ended up with Sirius ambushed halfway down the stairs, causing him to fall and then be entangled by so much ribbon, he represented a multi-coloured mummy. Lily had completed the job by tying the ribbons into an elaborate bow at the base of Sirius's lower back and levitating him outside and propping him against the present's table. Luckily for everyone, the ribbon had also managed to cover his mouth, so all they could hear from him was muffled yells as they all went through the process of setting up, while laughing at the dog animagus.

They completed the preparations just before lunchtime and everyone sat down at the dining room table to enjoy soup and sandwiches, even Sirius who had had his mouth uncovered was being fed by a giggling Ivy who seemed to have terrible aim if the state of Sirius's face after the meal was any indication. Sirius took it all in good stride though as he tried to ignore the laughter emanating from the family at his plight while the serious faced little girl smeared more tomato soup across his right cheek.

Much like with iris's birthday, the first guests to arrive were the Greengrass family. Harry had since found out through extensive reading that the greengrass family, while remaining neutral during the last war, had sided with the Potter family in an alliance since 1979 when Sirus's brother was slain in a death eater raid as retaliation for his refusal to join their ranks. Daphne and her mother were the first to appear and unlike the first time he had seen Daphne she actually approached him, giving him a small hug, saying "Happy birthday, harry." She said this with a same emotionless mask on her face that she had when he first saw her, but he could tell from a small tells she gave that she was happy to be there. "Thank you Daphne, I am glad you could come." Harry replied with a smile on his face. Astoria and her father then arrived and Astoria greeted him with more enthusiasm than her sister "Happy birthday Harry!" She almost squealed In excitement as she hugged him. Harry laughed and returned the hug, saying "Thanks Tory, I'm glad you could come." At that point Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott arrived along with Amelia Bones and harry went to greet them. Daphne stepped up next to her sister and watched as Harry gave a deeply blushing Susan Bones a hug of welcome, followed by an equally blushing Hannah Abbott. "Tory huh?" Daphne asked her sister with a slight twitch to her lips and a teasing lilt in her voice, "If I called you Tory, you'd kill me." Tory chose the mature response of sticking her tongue out at her big sister, causing her lips to twitch again in a faint smile.

Harry thoroughly enjoyed his party, talking too all of his friends, laughing and joking with them and trying to ignore the way parvarty giggled and blushed every time he looked at her. Padma had shot him an apologetic look when she noticed her sister's behaviour and Harry gave her a smile to say he didn't hold her sister's actions against her, causing a relieved smile from the Indian girl. Harry also made it a project of his to bring Susan and Hannah out of their shells during the party as he knew that once Susan and Hannah accepted him they would become good friends. Harry had the suspicion that Susan had only a few friends and that she was constantly on the lookout for people wanting to know her because of her auntie. Harry, who understood her plight all too well, treated her just like everyone else and a couple of hours into the party, she was talking to him without blushing, although she was still very reserved.

It was roughly around this time that the two professors from Hogwarts arrived and Harry excused himself from his guests to greet them along with his parents. Minerva McGonagall was a very strict woman with a no-nonsense attitude and a stern disposition. Harry knew from his journal readings and Yama's information that she had met older Harry in the past and he had said some uncomplimentary things about the transfiguration mistress. Harry guessed this is why we had not seen her in the past year. Fillius Flitwick was actually one of his favourite professors in the past and hoped that he would have a closer teacher/student relationship with him this time around. He shuddered in remembered shock at what his other-self called the professor the last time he had visited his mother. He was thoroughly ashamed of the things that had been said and knew an apology was more than needed for both.

James stepped forward to greet Professor McGonagall first, saying "Minerva, it is good to see you. It has been way too long since you last visited!" He hugged the transfiguration teacher and Harry saw a rare smile on her face as she returned the hug to one of her favourite students, saying "It's good to see you too James." Lily stepped forward and embraced the diminutive Professor Flitwick, saying "Dear Professor, I am glad you could come today." Flitwick laughed cheerily and returned the embrace enthusiastically, saying "No problem at all my dear!" James then shook Flitwick's hand and Lily kissed McGonagall's cheek and then stepped back to where Harry was still standing.

Minerva McGonagall was in two minds about attending the Potters today. She was delighted to see one of her most favourite students, as she had missed him and his hijinks around the school for the last 12 years. On the other hand though she was wary as the last time she had visited had not been pleasant due to the boy she was looking at in question. She had had a long conversation with James a few days before and had discovered the changes in Harry as well as the details about the accident which apparently had changed him for the better almost a year ago. Taking a look at the boy now her enhanced senses due to her animagus form were able to tell her that a lot had changed indeed in the boy. While he had grown and was still quite handsome, taking more after his mother than father in the looks department; his whole demeanour was completely different. Gone was the almost coiled spring intensity of the boy she had seen previously, as if the boy had been only just able to hold himself back from attacking everyone. The malevolence and rage she had seen in the boy's posture and eyes was also completely absent from the nervous looking boy in front of her. She gave him a neutral look while saying "A most happy birthday to you Mr. Potter." Harry smiled at professor McGonagall and taking her hand, kissed the back of it, saying "Thank you for your good wishes professor and thank you for attending my party today. When I asked my father to invite you, he was unsure whether you would attend."

Minerva was surprised to hear that the boy before her had actually invited her and the surprise must have shown as he continued by saying, looking at both professors "I actually personally invited both of you here for a reason. My mother and I recently came across a journal of sorts that I apparently had kept before my accident. Let's just say it was an account of every unpleasant thing I had done as my previous self and I was thoroughly shocked and disgusted by what I had done. In there I found out what I had said to you both the last time you were here." Seeing the professors were listening, he continued, Looking at professor McGonagall, still holding her hand he said "Professor, I was extremely rude and insulting to you the last time you were here and even though I don't remember the incident, I deeply regret any hurt, anger and embarrassment my crass words have caused you. I offer my most humble apologies and hope we can put the most regrettable incident behind us." Minerva did not expect such an eloquent apology from a young man about to enter Hogwarts, but could see that the apology was heartfelt by the look of remorse in his eyes. Smiling a little at him, she nodded, saying "I accept your apology in the spirit it was given, Harry. I hope to see much better behaviour from you when you attend Hogwarts?" Harry smiled and nodded, saying "Of course professor. I promise to behave properly and make my parents proud." Minerva smiled again and nodded, accepting this reassurance.

Harry then turned to the charms Professor and bowing low to the part-goblin, said "professor Flitwick, I have not only insulted you, but also your ancestry with the insults that I used previously. My remarks were thoughtless and from what I understand were designed to hurt the most at a point most people look down on you for, that being your being part-human and part-goblin. I sincerely apologise for the hurt my remarks have caused you. My mother has had nothing but good things to say about you and I deeply regret my former attitude towards you. I offer you as well my most humble apologies." Upon saying this, harry held himself in the bow, awaiting the words of Flitwick. The professor in question was happy to hear the sincerity in the boy's words. He had been saddened that his favourite student had nothing but a bigot for a son, but he too had been told of the changes in Harry since his accident. Smiling at the boy, He took hold of his shoulder and encouraged him to rise from his bow, saying "A very well-spoken apology Mr. potter. I accept your apology as well and hope this can be a new start for us as well." Harry smiled and nodded at this and shook the man's proferred hand. Harry then heard applause behind him and taking his hand back, he turned to see the whole party was standing behind his parents and had apparently heard his apologies to the professors. Astoria, Susan Hannah and Padma were smiling at him along with their parents, all of whom had a look of respect on their faces for his apology, while Parvarty had an inquisitive look on her face, probably wondering what he had said that warranted such an apology in the first place. Daphne's face was of course, emotionless, but he could tell she too was curious what he had said. Both Sirius and Remus along with his parents and iris had looks of pride on their faces at the mature and responsible way he had apologised and Harry felt a blush burn on his cheeks.

The party resumed after that and the professors seemed to enjoy their time at the party, talking with the adults and watching the children chat and laugh. Parvarty tried to wheedle out of him what he had said to have to apologise in such a way and harry just said that he would prefer not to say. Daphne simply raised an eyebrow in question and he indicated he would tell her later, which she accepted with a slight nod. Everyone else was simply too polite to enquire on such a delicate topic and so it was eventually dropped. The time finally came for Harry to open his presents, which he did so with gusto. He knew normally in his past life, he would have been extremely overwhelmed with receiving presents from so many people, but apparently there was some residue of the other Harry that had combined with his own as he no longer felt as if he didn't deserve to receive this love and attention.

Many of the girls had become aware through their conversations with him previously that he was interested in duelling and magic in general so many of his presents were books on duelling strategies of on curses and counter curses. Susan's book was a rare gift though as it was a copy of the auror's manual, which her Aunt Amelia had given permission to be given to him. He thanked everyone, giving Susan an especially tight hug, causing her to blush again and he thanked Amelia Bones, who smiled and replied that it was nothing. Both Sirius and Remus had pooled together their resources for Harry's present which turned out to be a book which had the ability to be able to store multiple books in the pages. You simply tapped your wand on the book you wished to copy and then tapped on one of the tabs in the copy book and the original would be copied into the book. What was really great about this book was that it contained and endless amount of space as when he slipped to the end of the pages, more would come from the back of the book and the ones in front would disappear into the book. This means he could literally have the whole Hogwarts library in his book bag in one book if he wished to. Seeing the look on his face at this present, especially after the explanation, Tory turned to her sister and said "A galleon says he'll be coming home for Christmas with half the Hogwarts library copied" Daphne snorted, saying "That's a suckers bet." Harry, hearing this, maturely ignored them.

Finally he got to his parents and found to his surprise that there were 2 presents. Looking at them enquiringly, James stepped forward and putting a hand on his shoulder, said "Harry, your mother and I have been very proud of the way you have turned yourself around over this past year and taken responsibility for past actions that you do not even remember. It shows that one day you will be a great wizard, but more important a great man. It was for this reason that we felt you deserved 2 presents this year." He then handed harry a familiar long package which he recognised for his original first year. Tearing the paper off excitedly, he found he was correct. It was a Nimbus 2000, the broom he had originally owned. It had only just come out on the market and Harry was excited to have the same broom as he used to again. He threw his arms around his father and mother and hugged them both tightly, yelling "Thank you so much!" They simply both laughed and told him they were proud of him again. Remembering the other present finally, he looked at it curiously. Being careful, he opened it as it wasn't the right shape for a book and too small to be a trunk. He was very surprised then when after unwrapping it he found it to be the Griffin egg he had seen in the pet store a couple of weeks ago. Looking at his mother in shock, he asked "how? When?" Lily smiled at at his stunned look and answered "When you walked out I quickly paid the man and asked him to deliver the egg to me later in the week, which he gladly did."

Everyone else had not become intrigued at what harry had received. The egg was around the size of an ostrich egg and was a dark brown in colour, but seemed to glow from within. The incubator glowed softly as the runes pulsed around it, keeping the baby Griffin at the optimal temperature. "What is it Harry?" Hannah asked, intrigued. Everyone else gathered around to listen as Harry described what had happened the day they had gone shopping in Diagon Alley and how he had felt the pull from his magic, leading him to the egg. All of the adults looked at each other at this, some wondering what it meant, others surprised that it could happen to a boy so young. Flitwick, seeing the looks of confusion, entered his lecturing mode and said "When a wizard or witch feels a strong pull from a magical creature, this usually indicates a potential for a familiar bond to occur. While a familiar bond is not rare, it is for one so young to find their familiar and for it to be a magical creature, it is exceedingly rare. James nodded at this, saying "I checked both the law enforcement files and enquired at the department for the regulation and control of magical creatures. Only 20 bonds to magical creatures have been recorded in the past 100 years and harry is one of the youngest." Harry, overwhelmed simply hugged his parents again, saying thank you over and over. He had felt crushed to have to leave the egg behind as it felt like he was leaving a part of himself. Lily then told him that he needed to put a drop of blood onto the control rune for the incubator, which would begin to bring the egg out of stasis. Taking a sharp knife his father offered him, Harry stepped forward and pricked his finger, allowing a few drops of blood to fall onto the rune that his mother had indicated. The rune glowed as it absorbed the magical blood and the entire incubator began to glow with a soft blue light and then after a few minutes it dissolved around the egg to leave a nest-like structure which now held the egg in place. The egg began to shake slightly as the animal inside awoke and began to try and break its way out. Everyone by now had gathered around the table to watch the hatching in barely concealed excitement. Iris stood on one side and took his hand looking at the egg expectedly, while Daphne stood next to him on his other side, watching calmly, but with a look of interest in her eyes. Slowly a large crack formed in the top of the egg and zigzagged its way down the side of the egg. With a final push from inside the egg almost shattered at the force and a bundle of fur flopped out onto the table. Harry stepped forward and picked up the little creature. It was slightly larger than the size of a six week kitten, with calico fur from below it shoulders down to the end of its tufted tail. Above this point on the animals body, the fur turned into smooth feathers the same colour which led up to a small pair of wings and the head of an eagle which was looking at him with its tiny fierce eyes. "Hello there, what's your name?" He asked softly. The animal looked at him for a moment and then mewed at him and then reaching down, bit his wrist. There was a brilliant flash of light which everyone had to shield their eyes from. When everyone could get their vision back they could see a healed scar on Harry's wrist where the griffin had bit him and the two of them looking into each other's eyes as if communicating with just looks. "What happened?" iris asked her mother. "That was the griffin bonding to harry as his familiar." Lily explained. Harry then looked up and said "His name is Maximus"


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Thank you all once more for your reviews. I received one from a guest who asked if I would be using the contract out on the family and harry being part of the criminal underworld previously. That will not be used in this fic. As the reviewer pointed out, a 10 year-old would not be able to develop such a relationship to an organisation where they would be willing to wipe out a very influential family. The author also freely admitted they used the situation to get rid of Karma, the deity they were using to help harry. This is not needed in mine as Yama only helped initially when putting harry in the new world.

There was also a suggestion that the griffin should have been female and named Hedwig. While this is a popular idea in fanfics, I myself if I had a pet who had died recently (remembering it was less than 2 years before), I doubt I would want to try and replace her with another by using her name or even buying a similar snowy owl. Hence why no owl and no Hedwig.

Chapter 10.

It was 2 days before iris's birthday and Harry had been allowed to go into Diagon Alley on his own in order to buy his sister a present. His mother had needed to see Elaina Greengrass and had taken Ivy and Iris with her. There was another reason why Harry had come into the alley, as he had received a letter from olivander, stating that he required him to visit as his wand was nearly complete. Harry, not understanding why his wand was not complete already, first made his way to Olivander's shop. This time, instead of the man trying to scare him by sneaking up on him, when he entered the shop, Olivander asked him to come through to the back where his workshop was. Stepping through, Harry was surprised when he saw what the workshop looked like. There was a large storage area, much like a library in structure, where there in one section were jars containing different wand cores and in the other, were large blocks of wood that harry could only deduce were to be used for wands.

Olivander was standing in the work-room part of this area where there was a large table with different tools and implements used for the creation of wands. "Good morning Mr. Potter." Olivander greeted in his other-worldly voice and Harry answered "Good morning sir. I understand you needed me here for a reason?"

Olivander smiled and nodded, pointing to his work-table, saying "Your wand is nearly complete, however, it seems not quite right. So in order for this wand to be complete I need to bind the materials together." Harry, knowing nothing about wand-lore looked confused and asked

"So how does this involve me?" Olivander's smile became a little creepier if that was possible and turning his eyes to the boy before him, said "it is quite simple Mr. Potter. The wand core reacted more strongly to your blood than your magic alone. Not many realise this but a person's magical pathways are identical to the pathways a person's blood flows. This means therefore that your blood is infused with magic, which is why blood magic is so powerful. I will need to infuse your wand with your blood in order to fully complete the wand and bond it to you." Seeing that Harry still looked slightly confused, he continued to explain "Your wand is made from rare materials Mr. Potter and very powerful materials. I have studied wand lore for more than a century and I have never seen where a wand core reacted more strongly to blood than magic before. This means that once your wand is fully complete, it will work only for a Potter and no other. If anyone other than a potter were to try to use this wand, the backlash would be quite severe."

Harry, looking intrigued, allowed Olivander to then take a large vial of blood which he then using spells he murmured, bathed the wand with, which absorbed the blood like a sponge. The only sign of the blood being black markings, which Harry identified as runes spiralling around the wand from the base to the tip. Once this was done, Olivander then levitated the wand into a box he had prepared and closing the box's lid, gave it to harry, saying "Let's go to the front of the shop before you touch your wand. As I have many volatile materials back here, I would prefer not to have an accident occur." Harry nodded in complete agreement and followed the wand maker back to the front.

Once both Harry and olivander had reached the front, olivander keeping a safe distance behind the counter, Harry opened the box and took out his wand. Upon wrapping his hand around the wand he felt an immense rush of power he had never felt before. If his old wand had felt like a warmth racing through his arm, this was like a volcanic eruption. Waving the wand a brilliant spectrum of sparks shot from the wand, looking like a firework exploding as the sparks sprayed across the room. Olivander's grin was almost manic as he saw the boy's magical core and the wand synch together and as the light show settled down he explained the wand to his customer "Mr. Potter this wand is 11 inches of cherry wood, representing death and rebirth with the hair of a Nundu one of the most powerful creatures I have ever seen. I was fortunate in my travel to gather materials to witness the subduing of such a large and fearsome animal. This wand is very powerful and I am sure you will do great things with it Mr. Potter." Harry, a little in awe at hearing what material his wand was made from thanked the wand maker and departed shortly after.

Harry made his way along Diagon Alley, pulling up his hood on his cloak as he did so. Continuing to walk at the same even pace, harry made his way into nocturne Alley, his body on guard and his eyes alert. While many glanced at him as he walked, as he had his hood up, the hags did not realise he was young and so left him alone as he looked as if he fit in. Harry had discovered while on the horcrux hunt in his earlier life that if you looked as if you belonged in an area and acted confident, you would be left alone. He found this to be true here and now ad he traversed the dirty cobbled street. Making his way past Borgin and Burkes, he then noticed that the alley became cleaner and the shops while a little older and a bit more decrepit, didn't look any different to some he had seen in Diagon. He then realised that the entrance was a way to keep those who had no business from coming too far into Nocturne Alley, which amused him for some reason he couldn't quite fathom. Harry was finding though that his personality had changed somewhat since he had begun this new life as he now found some situations humorous when he wouldn't before and also had a more open mind, if the fact that he was walking down nocturne Alley was any indication.

Seeing a book store on his left, he turned and entered the building. Unlike flourish and Blotts, this store was arranged more like a library, with single copies of books and arranged in alphabetical order by title rather than in subject areas. Harry mentally shrugged at this and began perusing the shelves. The shopkeeper, seeing that he would be a while, simply returned to his magazine he had been reading before harry had arrived. Harry found several more books on transfiguration and charms which seemed to give a more thorough explanation of the art behind the magic, if his quick browsing of the contents were any indication. He also found more extensive books on potions and duelling. While the potions books were a lot older than the ones he had purchased in Diagon, a lot of potions had not been revised in any years, so a lot of the material was still current and some potions were included which were not in his other texts, he noted absently as he carried the books to the counter.

The book store owner took one look at the pile of books in the young man's hands and knew this would be a repeat customer in the future. Calculating the total, he asked harry for 21 galleons, which he happily paid. Taking out his new wand, Harry shrunk the books and placed them in his pocket. He then enquired whether the man carried a listing of titles he carried, which the man provided for another 5 sickles. This was a self-updating catalogue, meaning whenever new titles arrived, they would automatically be updated within the catalogue and thus saving on Harry receiving post from a shop in nocturne. Thanking the man, he turned and made his way out of the book store and back into diagon as there was nothing else he really needed at the moment.

Harry then spotted a jewellery shop as he was walking and entered upon inspiration. His father had told him recently of the history of the four great houses, the Potters, the Bones, the Blacks and the Longbottoms. While 3 of the houses were currently in alliance, the Longbottoms, especially since Neville had become the boy who lived, held themselves aloof from the other 3 and on occasion had attacked the other 3 great houses. For this reason, harry was worried for his sister when she came to Hogwarts as it was only a year away. Entering the jewellers, he walked up to the jeweller and asked if they could do what he proposed to them. The jeweller offered some suggestions and showed him some selections which would be adequate for what he asked. Making a decision, he selected the item and paying the man for his work, informed him he would return in a few days to pick up the item. Pleased with himself, harry then departed and made his way back to the leaky Cauldron and home.

Later that evening, everyone was in awe of the wand that harry held in his hands, especially when he told everyone of the wand core that it contained and that it would only work for a Potter because of the blood used. "So what spell are you going to cast first?" His sister iris asked excitedly, not knowing he had already cast a shrinking charm earlier that day. Harry thought for a moment and then raising his wand, he performed exact wand movements as he had recently read in his transfiguration and charms books and whispered the words. There was a perfumed breeze in the air as he conjured red rose petals which spiralled around his wide-eyed sister and landed in a light carpet around her. James, Lily, Sirius and Remus were in awe of the spell, which was a third-year spell and at the control Harry had in his magic to be able to cast so well. Ivy just looked at her big brother with the usual look of adoration she always had on her face. Iris though blushed as she saw the roses had formed a heart-shape around her. Harry grinned at making his sister blush and while she was preoccupied, he walked over and offered her the wand. "What are you doing?" iris asked, slightly confused. Harry smiled at her, saying

"I know you have been dying to do some magic, so I decided I would let you use my wand all you liked before I went to Hogwarts. I trust you will take care of it. All I ask is that you only use it while either mum or dad are in the room to make sure you are okay, alright?" Iris, couldn't believe her ears and looked into his eyes to make sure he wasn't teasing her. Seeing the honesty and affection in his eyes, she leaped up and hugged him tightly, squealing "Thank you so much!" Harry returned the hug, saying "You are more than welcome." Everyone smiled at the touching scene. The rest of the night was spent with Harry coaching his sister on how to perform some simple charms he knew she should be able to do at her age.

A couple of days later as Harry was making his way to the jewellers, he decided to go into the second-hand shop and see what they had, not really knowing why. He walked through the shop, not really noticing anything interesting until he reached the back of the store, where old and broken wands were on display. Walking along and idly looking at them, harry was then shocked to see a wand with a metallic handle sitting amongst the broke and bent wands. Taking up the wand, he examined it minutely to see if there were any cracks in the wand. It appeared to be in pristine condition, which surprised him. What surprised him even more though was the fact that he found a training wand in a second-hand shop of all places. Making his way quickly to the counter and using his burgeoning occlumency skills to hide his excitement, he asked the shop clerk how much the wand was. The clerk, looking disinterestedly at the wand shrugged and said "2 galleons." Harry quickly paid and pocketing the wand, made a side-trip to Olivanders and then picked up the present for his sister from the jewellers.

When he arrived home, he rushed up to his room and hid all he had purchased, keeping it all away from the prying eyes of his 2 sisters. After wrapping Iris's presents, He actually used the floorboard that his diary had first been under and considered this a much better reason for having a hiding place. Deciding he had done enough work for today, Harry took out his broom and went outside to fly for a while to burn some of the adrenalin off that he had accumulated during his shopping trip and from his discovery in the second-hand shop. He stayed out for almost 2 hours and only came back in once he realised his mother was home. Taking a steep dive on his broom, he pulled up at the last moment and flew towards the back door only a few feet from the ground. When he hopped off his broom and opened the door, he was surprised to see his father there, applauding his flying, with his mother next to him, holding her face in her hands as she was near the window.

"I guess mum saw me flying huh?" harry asked somewhat sheepishly, as he knew his mother was overly protective of his sisters and himself. James grinned and only nodded, keeping a wary eye on his wife, as he didn't want to be hexed by saying the wrong thing. Harry walked over to his mother and drew her into a hug, saying "I'm ok mum. I was perfectly safe the whole time." Lily returned the hug a little fiercer than normal and Harry then realised that she was much like Hermione in his past, who had been terrified for him every time he was on a broom. Knowing she was already arguing a lost cause, as he was his father's son when it came to flying, Lily asked Harry "please promise me you will be careful when flying. I had enough scares when I see your father flying. I don't need any more seeing you trying to kill yourself." Harry promised, but knew in his heart that he wouldn't be able to resist performing more daring stunts in the future and just hoping that his mother wasn't witnessing it when he did so.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Hi everyone. Thank you for the positive reviews, I appreciate them all. I have been a little under fire for my paragraphing and formatting for conversations, so I will try to do better. I have already pointed out why sometimes my capitalisation and spelling isn't always correct, so if you can bear with it, I hope you'll still enjoy the story.

I have had several comments about Iris to not be a part of the relationships developing in Harry's romantic life, so I am putting up a new poll to have this decided once and for all. It is a simple yes or no, do you want Harry and his sister together. Again, it is your choice as to what happens. At the moment harry and his sister are close, but that can be considered somewhat normal.

I also got comments about harry not being super harry like in a lot of fics. My reasoning for this is that he died at the age of 17, so really he only had time for what he learned at school. Now let's be frank, Harry was a slob about his work nearly as much as Ron Weasley was, so I don't see how he could be considered super anything when he barely completed his schooling and would not have if not for Hermione lighting a fire under his ass every week or so.

Also someone was confused about iris's birthday, thinking she had had multiple birthdays. She had one birthday shortly after harry got out of hospital which was towards the end of August, so now that it is nearly time for harry to go to Hogwarts, she is having another. Cheers.

Chapter 11.

It was the morning of September 1st and harry had awoken early, excited to be going to Hogwarts, but on the other hand he was also going to miss his family. He had become very close with his mother and sisters especially as they were always around, While the relationship with his father had developed a little more slowly due to the fact that James was often at work, so harry only saw him for a couple of hours a day. In this respect, he was jealous of his previous counterpart, as he had had plenty of time with his father when he was a lot younger, while all he really had was a few hours a day for the past year. Despite this though, Harry was happy with how his relationships with his family had developed.

Rising up and moving Maximus off of his chest, where he had apparently decided the best place was for a bed, earning a small screech, harry began to get ready for his day. He had packed his trunk the night before and all he had to do this morning was to get ready and put Maximus in his transport to go to Hogwarts. Spending only a few minutes in the shower, Harry quickly washed and dried off with a fluffy towel. Even though he knew he could do it with magic, he preferred to dry himself with a towel, as it left a much better feeling on his skin. He often felt the spell actually dried his skin out a little, so rarely used it. Walking into his room and through to his wardrobe, he selected the clothes he had decided to wear for the day. He put on a white button-up shirt, which he left un-tucked, with jeans and black dragon-hide boots. He left his hair free as he hated the way it felt when he had to tie it, as it usually ended up giving him a headache.

Picking up Maximus, he carried him downstairs, while the part-feline complained loudly about being woken up so early. He shut up soon enough though when Harry set down a bowl with chunks of raw meat for his breakfast and the Griffin began tearing into his meal with a gusto that made harry feel slightly nauseous. He had read up on griffins and knew that his familiar would not reach full size for at least 100 years and would probably live beyond his own life-time with the usual age of a Griffin in captivity being around 200 years. In the meantime, Maximus's diet would consist of raw meat which normally he would get by hunting small mammals at his current size, with the prey growing larger as he grew larger, ending up with animals the size of horses being his preferred prey. Considering that horses apparently were a delicacy for griffins, Harry briefly wondered how it was then that hippogriffs came about as they were a combination of the two species, but shrugged it off as some wizard screwing around with experimental breeding. After all Hagrid had done the same with Manticores and Fire-crabs in his fourth year previously.

Once he had attended to Maximus, harry went into the kitchen and noticed that his mother was already up and cooking breakfast for everyone. He walked over and kissed her on the cheek, saying "Good morning mum."

Lily smiled, saying "Good morning sweetie. Couldn't sleep this morning?" Harry shook his head and began helping his mother by scrambling some eggs as she took care of the bacon and the pancakes. Soon enough, the meal was prepared and levitated to the table and Lily went to wake everyone, while harry waited at the table. Soon enough a red-haired missile shot into the room, jumping into his lap and giving him a fierce hug. Chuckling slightly, harry returned the hug and said "Good morning Ivy."

Ivy sat down in his lap and smiling over her shoulder at her brother replied "Good morning!" Ignoring the fact that everyone hadn't arrived yet, Ivy began serving herself breakfast. Harry didn't say anything, as he knew at the moment she was still a little too young to understand about manners fully. Instead, he helped her by pouring the maple syrup on her pancake for her as he really didn't want a repeat of the incident where she had spilled maple syrup over herself and consequently him as well, as he had been her seat at that time about two months ago.

Soon enough iris entered the room yawning and waved a good morning to both of her siblings. Harry had come to realise very shortly after coming to this world that Iris was not a morning person and he was more likely to be thumped by her in the morning if he didn't watch his words. Even though she didn't have their mother's red hair, she apparently still had her temper. Both harry and Ivy returned the non-verbal greeting, while Lily and James entered the dining room and sat at the table.

The conversation at the breakfast table was somewhat strained as everyone, save Ivy, knew that harry would soon be away from their family for the next three months, an idea that disturbed all of them. James tried to lighten the tension in the room by cracking some jokes, but the laughter was half-hearted at best. Finally, Lily cast tempus and found that it was time for everyone to get ready. "Harry, if you can pass Ivy to me, I'll get her cleaned up and you can go and get your trunk."

Ivy, hearing this, squealed "But I'm not dirty!" Harry looked at her with a cocked eyebrow as she had her face almost completely covered in maple syrup and her hands were likewise sticky. Ivy, seeing his look and understanding it, grinned cheekily and placed a wet and somewhat sticky kiss on his cheek, which harry pretended to be disgusted by, causing her to giggle. Harry rose up and gave Ivy to his mother, giving both a kiss as he passed and grabbing a protesting Maximus, walked upstairs to his room. Shrinking his trunk, he placed it in his pocket and then secured Maximus in a runic-enhanced cage, as the small Griffin was already quite strong. He met everyone else downstairs and they flooed to platform nine and three quarters.

Arriving at the platform with a very disgruntled Maximus, apparently he did not enjoy floo travel, harry was caught by his father, who had been waiting as he knew Harry's proclivity of landing on his face. Giving his father a grateful look, Harry righted himself, and moved with his family further onto the platform to let the next people arrive. The platform was very crowded with older students talking to friends they had not seen since the end of last year, while there were new students with their parents in various stages of distress as their children were leaving home for the first time. Through all of this though, the sight of the scarlet and gold steam engine, with the plumes of steam that hung across the floor like a fog gave the platform an eerie feeling. Seeing all of this in a glance, harry then turned back to his family. His mother with a barely contained sob drew harry into a fierce hug, saying "Promise me that you will behave yourself and that you will be careful!"

Harry returned the hug, becoming slightly teary-eyed himself and replied "Of course mum, I'll try to make you and dad proud of me." James then came over and putting a hand on Harrys shoulder, said

"Son, you have already made us proud. Just continue to be the young man you are becoming and we'll always be proud of you." Harry blushed in pleasure at these words and gave his father's hand on his shoulder a squeeze in thanks.

Ivy, who was in iris's arms, looked at harry curiously, asking "harry where are you going?"

Harry, predicting trouble from his little sister, took her into his arms and looking down at her said softly "Ivy, I have to go to Hogwarts to learn magic so I can become a great wizard. I will write to you so mummy can read my letters to you and she can help you write back to me, okay?" She nodded her head, but then burst into tears and placed her head against his shoulder, sobbing

"But I don't want you to go harry!" Lily, seeing that her son was helpless to do anything about his sister's tears, took ivy from him and began comforting her, telling her it would be alright and that Harry will be back at Christmas time, which did nothing to stop the sobs racking the little girl's body. Sighing, as he felt really bad about leaving to begin with and feeling worse every second as he had to hear his sister crying, turned to iris, who had been waiting her turn. She launched herself into his arms and hugging him tightly, whispered in his ear, "You take care of yourself, you hear?" Giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and blushing, she backed away, standing next to her mother, who was still consoling Ivy. Waving goodbye to everyone and not wanting to make it any more painful, he turned and entered the train to find a compartment.

Harry, who had entered the train near the rear of the train, decided he would not sit in the same spot he had previously and made his way up the train until he came across compartments that had people in them. Retreating until he found an empty compartment in the middle of the train, he slid open the door and placed Maximus's cage on the seat and sat down next to it. He looked into the cage and snorted when he realised that the young Griffin had fallen asleep. Taking the miniature trunk from his pocket, he enlarged it again and took out a book from his library compartment and began reading Hogwarts a history. He had deliberately left this book to read on the train as he knew it was a great way to start a conversation, especially if he happened to see Hermione granger. Sure enough about five minutes after he had sat down, there was a rather timid knock on his door. Looking up he saw this reality's version of his young friend on the other side. Getting up, he opened the door and gave Hermione a friendly smile and an enquiring gaze.

Hermione blushed when she saw the person who had opened the door and momentarily forgot what she was going to say when she saw how pretty the boy before her was. When he smiled at her and quirked an eyebrow, she blushed slightly and asked in a small voice

"Do you mind if I sit here?" Harry, seeing from the set of her shoulders that she was upset, smiled wider and opened the door wider, inviting her in, saying

"Of course, please come in." Hermione's look changed at his words and she gave him a brilliant smile as she walked in, dragging her trunk behind her. Harry took the trunk from her and hoisted it into the rack above their heads and they sat down opposite to each other. Harry held his hand out to Hermione, saying "My name is harry Potter." Taking his hand and giving it a firm shake, Hermione replied

"My name is Hermione Granger." Harry smiled, and turning Hermione's hand over, placed a light kiss on the knuckles, saying

"I am pleased to meet you Miss Granger." Hermione blushed at this and taking her hand back, sat back in her seat. Her eyes then landed on the cage next to harry and her eyes widened when she realised the creature that was inside.

"Is that a griffin?" She asked in wonder. Harry smiled and nodded, telling her of what had happened in Diagon Alley. Hermione looked very surprised to hear information about familiar bonds and asked him more about it.

"Well," he began, "It is essentially a mental link between Maximus and myself. I know where he is and vice versa. I also know his wellbeing so I can tell if he is hurt or in distress. We can usually communicate mentally too if we are close enough." Hermione absorbed the information like a sponge and once harry had finished his explanation, said

"I thought we were only allowed an owl, a cat or a toad at Hogwarts?" harry nodded, sitting back and crossing his arms, saying

"Normally that is correct. However, when a familiar bond has been created between a magic user and an animal, they are allowed to bring that creature to Hogwarts. Maximus is pretty docile at this age anyway and he won't be full-sized for quite a few years yet." Hermione nodded and seeing the book harry was reading, began a conversation about Hogwarts and they shared information that Hermione had gleaned from her reading and Harry from his experience in the castle.

They continued chatting throughout the train ride and Harry decided to be gallant and purchased lunch for Hermione when the food cart came along. Hermione thanked him politely, but was secretly thrilled that she had already made a friend on her trip to Hogwarts.

"So which house do you think you will be in?" Hermione asked as she nibbled on the edge of a pumpkin pasty.

Harry thought about it for a moment and then asked "Well do you want the real break down of the houses or what everyone actually thinks of them?" Hermione looked at him for a moment and then gestured she wanted both. Harry grinned at this as he knew this would be her answer and leaning back, said

"Well the house of Gryffindor espouses courage and bravery, but anyone not in the house thinks this means you are reckless and tend to rush in without a plan. Hufflepuff house espouses the traits of loyalty and hard-work, but are seen by anyone outside of the house as the left-overs and a bunch of duffers. Ravenclaw espouses intelligence and wit, which translates to everyone else as being the house of nerds and bookworms. Finally Slytherin house values cunning and ambition, which everyone else believes means that they are all evil and dark wizards in training... Given this and my love of reading and learning, I think I would prefer to be a nerd!" Harry finished to Hermione's giggles at his description of the houses. He then asked

"What about you?" Hermione bit her lip in thought and said

"I'm not sure. At first I wanted to be in Gryffindor because Professor Dumbledore was in Gryffindor, but I also like reading and from your descriptions I don't think many in that house would." Harry nodded in agreement, saying

"I agree. I think you would be better in Ravenclaw with me. These people will value your intelligence and not make fun of you for it, which I can see happening in Gryffindor." They settled into a comfortable silence after this as Hermione thought about Harry's words and Harry continued to read his book.

It was mid-afternoon when the door to their compartment was opened and Draco Malfoy and his two thugs appeared. Harry looked up at them, bored already at the look of arrogance on Malfoy and stupidity on his bodyguards.

"Yes?" He asked, not hiding the boredom in his voice. Malfoy attempted to puff up but only looked like a pigeon with no feathers as he said haughtily

"I am looking for Longbottom." Harry pretended to look around and then under the seats and on top of the luggage rack. Turning to Malfoy, he said

"Sorry, he doesn't appear to be here." Saying this, he sat down again and taking up his book, ignored the three. Hermione on her part was hard-pressed not to burst out laughing at Harry's antics. It grew even harder when she saw the look on the pale boy's face when harry went through his little charade and then ignored him. A pink tinge then came to the boy's face as he realised he was being made a fool of and stepping forward slightly, he sneered, saying

"Do you know who I am? How dare you ignore me?" Harry looked up in boredom and sighing rose to his feet. He towered over the smaller boy, who stepped back, not realising just how tall Harry was. Harry smiled a shark-like grin at Malfoy and said slowly

"Oh yes I know exactly who you are. You are Draco Malfoy, heir to the noble house of Malfoy. Your mother is narcissi Malfoy nay Black, cousin to the head of the Most ancient and noble house of Black, Sirius Black. However I don't think you realise who I am." Stepping forward into Draco's personal space, he leaned forward and said in a low and dangerous voice

"I am Harry James Potter, heir to the most ancient and noble house of potter, god-son to the head of the most ancient and noble house of Black and heir presumptive to the house of black should my godfather produce no progeny. Do make sure you realise when you are talking to your betters in future heir Malfoy or I may be obligated to contact your mother's head of house and discuss the annulment of your parent's marriage on the grounds of the insult you have perpetrated to the heir of a most ancient and noble house, causing disgrace to the most ancient and noble house of Black. Now be gone, pion." On finishing, Harry stepped back and sat back down, taking up his book once more, ignoring the three again. Draco Malfoy's complexion had gone from a slight pink in colour to that of old porridge when he realised who he was talking to. Quickly turning without a word, he walked out of the compartment, his bodyguards following slowly behind him.

There was a stunned silence for a moment in the compartment as Hermione gaped at how he had handled the rude little boy. Then gaining a modicum of control she began to rapid-fire questions about everything he said. Harry, seeing how curious she was about everything he said, took out his trunk again and opening up the library compartment, shifted his bookshelf until he came upon a book on wizarding customs he had borrowed from the potter library and taking it out, gave it to Hermione saying

"This explains about the hierarchy in the wizarding world and what customs there are. It's a little antiquated, but it will help you to understand situations such as the one you just witnessed." Hermione took the book with a grateful smile and immersed herself within the book. Harry smiled to himself as he saw this and continued reading his own book shortly afterwards there was a knock at the door and harry smiled when he looked up and saw that Daphne was standing there with Susan Bones. He opened the door and welcome them both in and introduced them to Hermione.

"Hermione Granger, I would like to introduce you to two friends of mine. This is Susan Bones and Daphne Greengrass." Susan smiled at Hermione, saying hello; while Daphne simply nodded as she sat next to Maximus and began patting the griffin with one finger through the bars of his cage. Hermione and Susan were soon engaged in conversation as Harry continued reading while Daphne was content to pat Maximus through the cage. Since all of the girls had changed before, Harry was the only one requiring to change when they were reaching Hogsmead. He therefore went into another empty compartment nearby and changed into his uniform and robes, making sure to fasten his cloak correctly and that his tie was neatly tied.

He was just in time to arrive back at the compartment when the train began to decelerate as they had arrived at Hogsmead. Looking into Maximus's eyes, harry explained he would need to stay on the train as the house elves would then take him to Harry's dormitory once he had been sorted. Harry sniggered when Maximus asked something and he shook his head as he answered him mentally. Once he was done, he noticed that the girls were looking at him in question. Harry smiled and explained

"I was just telling Maximus that he would need to stay on the train as the house elves will transport him to Hogwarts. He just asked me if he could eat one, which I of course said no." The girls giggled slightly at the fierce look the griffin gave harry on his explanation and Harry just grinned back cheekily. Once the train stopped, they all rose and waited while the crowds cleared from the hallway of the train. Harry led the way and stepping off the train, he helped the girls down, who all blushed and thanked him, except Daphne, who simply accepted his help without comment. Once having done so, he turned away from the train and followed the girls towards a crowd of first years surrounding a towering man with a lantern, calling all the first years to him.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Hi all. Thank you for the positive reviews. I enjoy hearing how much you enjoy my work. I have a lot of people telling me they don't want iris in a relationship with harry, yet the poll says different so far. My response is if you want Harry without Iris in his romantic life, then vote. If you are not a member, then register. Trust me if a blind man can register, you can.

I also got told by someone that Harry is way too young at the moment for a relationship. I agree fully. It will be a couple of year's story time before anything romantic starts. As I said before at the moment all he will have is friends. In my opinion the harry from the books was emotionally stunted due to his treatment at the Dursleys anyway so even at his mental age of 17 he still needs to develop, which is why I thought the age of 10 was the perfect time for him to replace the other harry.

I also received criticism for not having evil harry. Well once this story is done and the other two that are simmering in my profile, I'll consider writing an evil harry story.

Once again, if you want a say in the relationship, then vote!

Chapter 12.

Harry and his friends followed Hagrid through the darkness along a steep and slippery path. A few times harry had to hold his hand out to steady his companions as one of them slipped on the surface. He just smiled each time as they thanked him, saying it was nothing. They finally rounded a bend in the path and were on the shore of the black lake. The lake looked inky and mysterious in the lamp-light with a dozen little small boats floating in the water silently. The children though were ignoring this for the sight that Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry gave them. Its multiple turrets were glowing with the many lighted windows that shone into the night sky and it sat majestically on the edge of a high cliff above them.

Harry helped his female companions into the boat first, then took his place next to Daphne. Once Hagrid was sure that everyone was organised and in a boat, he called

"Forward!" With those words, the little boats took of silently and began to glide across the lake. Everyone was silent as they watched the castle come closer and closer. Finally Hagrid called out

"Heads down!" Everyone ducked their heads as the boats passed through a curtain of ivy. Harry sat up as soon as they passed the curtain and the three girls in his boat copied his action. The boats continued until they reached a small harbour. Harry hopped out of the boat first and helped the three girls disembark from the boat, once again receiving their thanks and a blush from Hermione and Susan. Daphne was her usual self, meaning her imitation of a Greek statue was perfect as she thanked Harry for his help. Hannah Abbott, who had also become a friend over the last year, met up with them as they walked up the stairs from the harbour and onto the lawn in front of the entrance to the castle. They followed Hagrid up the steps, where they all halted as he knocked on the front door with his large fist. Professor McGonagall apparently was waiting just behind the door as the door opened soon after hag rid had stopped knocking. As Harry remembered from his previous time, she was wearing emerald green robes and her hair was up and pulled back with a severe expression on her face. He was sure that only he noticed the twinkle in her eye which indicated her happiness at seeing the new students and he understood that she maintained this act in order to instil in the new students not to cross her as a teacher.

"The new students, Professor McGonagall" Hagrid announced proudly. Minerva McGonagall's eyes twinkled a little brighter for a moment as she looked at hagrid and said

"Thank you Hagrid. I'll take them from here." With this, she opened the doors wide for the students, while hagrid walked off obviously to take his seat within the great hall. Professor McGonagall beckoned the students inside and led them to a side chamber off of the great hall, which while adequate, did cause the students to bunch up more than they normally would. Daphne gripped his arm slightly to maintain her balance as everyone was forced together and as she looked up at him apologetically, he smiled back in return, indicating that it was fine.

Once everyone had quietened down, professor McGonagall began her prepared speech.

"Welcome to Hogwarts! Before the start of term feast you must be sorted into your houses." She informed the students.

"While you are here, your house will be somewhat like your family. Good behaviour will earn your house points, while misbehaviour will lose your house points. The four houses are Gryffindor, hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. At the end of each year the house with the most points will be awarded the house cup. I hope you will be a credit to whichever house you become a part of. Please wait here." With these words, she departed to make sure everything was ready. Speculation began to run rife as to how they sorted the students and it was at this time he first saw the-boy-who-lived. Neville Longbottom was still the pudgy 11 year-old he remembered from his first sorting, but the look on his face spoke volumes about the difference between his old reality and this new one. Neville had a look of fake boredom on his face and you could tell from the tilt of his chin and look that he was as arrogant as the Malfoy heir.

When Ronald Weasley began talking about what his brother Fred had told him about wrestling a troll, Neville turned and sneering at the boy, said

"Weasley, I doubt if that was the case that anyone here could be sorted, except perhaps for the-boy-who-lived!" Upon saying this he extended his arms out as if to let all the students bask in his magnificence. Harry for his part was shaking silently in laughter at the antics of this Neville and Daphne who noticed his shaking and realising what it was from, couldn't help but let her lips twitch at the ends in her peculiar way of smiling.

Looking around once he gained control of himself, he could see many people seemed disinterested at Neville's announcement, while some were outright hostile towards the boy. There were only a few who seemed in awe of the boy and many of these he surmised were muggleborn as they hadn't known about Neville before this. He was surprised when he looked at Hermione though, for she had a look of pure disgust on her face at the grandstanding that Neville was engaging in. His respect for this Hermione grew at the realisation that she wasn't enthralled by this celebrity, which only meant good things for second year if Lockhart was still in their futures.

It was at that point that the ghosts of Hogwarts made their appearance, scaring more than half of the students around Harry. He felt the grip of Daphne's hand on his arm tightens lightly for a moment and he reached up, giving her hand a comforting squeeze. She looked at him gratefully and he smiled at her. He noticed that Neville had been one of the ones who had jumped and while he had been whirling to see what had caused the commotion had smacked Ernie Macmillan in the back of the head, earning a glare from the boy in question. Harry met Susan's eyes as they had both seen what had happened and had to turn away to stop from bursting out laughing.

Professor McGonagall arrived then and indicating to the students to form a line, she led them from the ante chamber and into the great hall. Harry had stepped behind Daphne and in front of Susan as they made their way into the great hall. He looked around and nothing much seemed too different from his time. He heard Hermione whispering about the ceiling behind him and he smiled as he heard Susan mutter in agreement that it was an amazing bit of magic. They all lined up in front of the staff table, facing the students, while professor McGonagall brought out the stool and placed the sorting hat on it.

Everyone except Harry stared at the hat as it began its song, but harry, suspecting that it was probably the same song from his first year, ignored it and studied the students to see if there were any changes he could tell. Not having known many of the older years, he wasn't sure if there was much of a difference. All of the students he did know from his previous life seemed to be where they were previously though, such as Percy Weasley, Penelope Clearwater and Marcus Flint. Shrugging mentally he began to pay attention again once the hat finished its song, although only to the point where he could tell where his friends were sorted. With no surprise both Hannah and Susan were sorted into Hufflepuff, which he applauded for. Tracy Davis, who he had not seen on the train was sorted into Slytherin.

The first change came with Hermione, although he guessed his talk with her probably had an influence. Instead of almost running to the hat and jamming it on her head like last time, she walked confidently to the stool and taking a fortifying look at harry, which he returned with an encouraging smile, sat on the stool and allowed the professor to place the hat on her head. Within 10 seconds, the hat announced her as a new ravenclaw and she made her way to her new house, which applauded her, along with Daphne and Harry. Daphne, who was as reticent as ever, was next and she made her way to the stool with grace and the air of someone taking a relaxing walk. Harry envied her, remembering how nervous he had been at his first sorting. Surprising harry, she too was placed in ravenclaw.

He then ignored the other students being sorted until Neville Longbottom was announced and the whispering began that he remembered from his time of being sorted. Neville walked up arrogantly to the stool and the hat had no more than touched his head when it announced Gryffindor. He once again ignored the students until he heard Padma's name, but her sorting was the same as previously and he applauded as she walked to the Ravenclaw table. Finally Professor McGonagall announced his name

"Harry potter." Walking with confidence and holding his head high like a pureblood, he smiled at professor McGonagall before sitting on the stool, looking directly ahead. The professor placed the hat on his head and the sorting began.

"Hmm interesting", the hat began.

"You seem to have plenty of bravery and excellent loyalty to those who prove themselves to you, you are cunning as you rebuilt your relationship with your family and have the ambition to be a great wizard. However, your intelligence is what you prize the most along with learning. Therefore you will do well in…"

"Ravenclaw!" The hat pronounced to the whole hall and Harry, rising, took off the hat and thanking the professor, who returned a small smile, he made his way to Ravenclaw who were applauding him. He sat down next to Daphne and smiled at his friends who were in the same house. The sorting was soon at the last few students and Ronald weasley was sorted into Gryffindor, where he sat near Longbottom. Blaise Zabini was the last and he sat below the hat for a moment, when the hat announced to Harry's surprise

"Ravenclaw!" Harry applauded as did the rest of his new house, as Blaise made his way down the table and sat opposite of Harry.

Dumbledore then rose to his feet, with his arms outstretched in welcome, beaming as if nothing pleased him more than seeing the students seated before him.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts. I only have a few words and here they are. Nitwit, Oddment, Blubber, Tweak, Thank you!" With that he sat down and the tables filled with hundreds of pounds of food. Harry loaded his plate with a balance of meat and vegetables as he wanted to continue improving on his body and knew a major part of that was his nutrition. However, he did load a substantial amount of food onto his plate, he just ate in a refine manner, unlike what he could see from Ronald Weasley. Even longbotton looked green at the mess of half-digested food that sprayed from the boy's mouth as he attempted to talk. Turning away, harry set himself to eating his own dinner.

Once everyone had sated their hunger enough to begin to chat, the first year students began to introduce themselves to each other. He met Kevin Entwhistle, Anthony Goldstein as well as Terry Boot. Harry shook hands with Blaise zabini when he introduced himself and decided to try and get to know the dark-skinned boy as he was one of the few Slytherins he had respected in his previous reality, as he seemed to stay out of the politicking that went on within the house. The female fifth year prefect, Penelope Clearwater then introduced herself to the first-years and pointed out her counterpart, a boy by the name of Greg Simpkin, who didn't really seem interested in meeting the first-years.

The desserts then appeared on the table once the main courses had disappeared and Harry helped himself to treacle tart and hot custard. Conversation ceased while everyone enjoyed their favourite treat and only resumed once everyone was full. This was then interrupted as professor Dumbledore once again rose and gave the start-of-term announcements.

"Now that we have had our excellent feast, it is time for some start of term notices." He began. "First years are to notice that the forbidden forest is strictly that, forbidden. Some of our older students would do well to remember this as well!" At this, his eyes flickered to the weasley twins.

"Mr. filch has asked me to inform you that no magic is to be used in the halls and that there is a list of banned items, which is tacked to the door of Mr. filch's office. Tryouts for Quid ditch will begin in week 2 and you are advised to see Madame Hooch if you are interested in competing. Duelling tryouts will begin in week 3 and notices will be put on your house notice boards announcing when your houses try-outs begin."

Harry upon hearing this became excited as he didn't know there was a duelling competition as Hogwarts a history, or at least the part he had read had not mentioned it.

"Finally," Dumbledore concluded," I must inform you that this year the third floor on the right-hand side is forbidden to all who do not wish to die a most painful death." Upon saying this, his eyes flickered towards Longbottom, but harry was sure he was the only one to notice it. With those final ominous words, Dumbledore dismissed them all to their common rooms for the night. Penelope told the first-years to wait until most of the crowd had departed and so they sat until most of the hall had emptied. Penelope, or Penny as she asked them to call her, led them through the corridors and to the west wing of the castle. Climbing the stairs to the fifth floor, Harry noticed that they were not far from the library and suspected Rowena Ravenclaw had put the common room there on purpose. They then climbed a tightly-winding staircase to the entrance of their tower, which was a door with a Bronze door-knocker in the shape of a raven.

"This is the ravenclaw common room entrance!" Penny announced to the gathered first-years. "In order to gain entrance, you must answer the knocker's riddle. If you can't answer it, you must either wait for another student to do so or go down the fifth floor corridor to professor Flitwick's office and he should be able to help you." Turning to the knocker, she rapped it on the door and it spoke up.

"I proceed you in the morning and follow you in the evening, but walk in step with you at midday." Penny turned to the students with an enquiring look on her face.

"Does anyone know what the answer is?" She asked. Harry knew as his mind worked a lot better since he had begun occlumency, but waited for someone else to have a chance. Everyone thought about it and a couple gave answers that proceed incorrect. Finally, he stepped forward and said

"It is your shadow." The raven cawed and said

"Well done. You may enter." With that, the door opened, allowing the new students their first view of the common room. The room was what he remembered from his trip here with Luna. Tall, arching windows which would show views of the mountains, with many small tables with chairs for studying. There was a large bookshelf on one wall, while the opposite side held the stairs leading to the dormitories with a statue of Rowena Ravenclaw in between them. Penny indicated that the girl's dormitories were on the left, while the boys were on the right. There was nothing said about boys not being able to enter the girl's rooms, which surprised Harry. Penny then informed them that the rules of ravenclaw house would be explained to them by her in the morning, when they would also be spoken to by their head of house, professor Flitwick. She wished them a goodnight and they all turned and trooped to the stairs.

Wishing Hermione, Daphne and Padma a good night, Harry followed Blaise up the stairs to the first landing. There was a door that had a plaque with 'first years' written on it, which led to a hallway with a single door for each of them with a plaque that held their name. harry was delighted to find out that this meant they had individual rooms and he wished Blaise a goodnight as he turned the handle on his door and walked into what would be his room for the next nine months. Harry was so tired he didn't notice much more than his room contained a desk and chair, with his four-poster bed being next to the window. Taking out his trunk, he enlarged it and placed it at the end of his bed and took out his pyjamas. After changing, he pulled back the hangings to his bed to find Maximus snoozing in the centre of his bed, sprawled out and looking extremely comfortable. Moving the animal over carefully, so as not to wake him, harry got into bed and fell asleep shortly afterwards.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Thanks for the great reviews. I can see, as someone mentioned to me, that I will not be able to make everyone happy whatever the outcome of the poll. I've kind of resigned myself to this fact.

The review regarding evil Harry and why not him gradual becoming good. I am sorry to tell you but that is not how brain injuries work. It is an instant change that can occur with such an injury. However, on saying this, Harry is not all goody two shoes as he was in the books, he just hasn't found the right… inspiration to show what he is truly capable of.

Chapter 13.

Harry woke up early the next morning and rose quietly as to not to disturb Maximus who was still sprawled out on one side of his bed. He quickly got dressed in a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt and quickly exited the empty common room to begin his exercise for the day. He started jogging along the fifth floor corridor and maintained his pace as he reached the stairs and began climbing. He continued up the stairs past the sixth and finally reached the seventh floor, beginning to sweat mildly. He jogged along the corridor until he reached the tapestry of barnabus the barmy, when he turned around, still maintaining the same speed while thinking of a place where he could exercise. He turned and did this twice more until a door appeared in the wall opposite the tapestry. Pulling open the door, Harry saw that the room had modelled itself similarly to the way the duelling room at potter manor was designed.

He continued his jogging around the track for half an hour and was pleased with his progress by the time he was finished. He then went to the centre of the room and began some light weight work to help with his overall fitness and muscle tone. By the time he was done he had managed to work up quite a sweat and gratefully took the bottle of chilled water that appeared next to him as he finished his last exercise. Doing a light jog around the edge of the room to cool down, he then walked from the room of requirement and stood standing while the door disappeared from the wall. He had a thought which made his eyes light up and with a smile on his face, he jogged back to Ravenclaw tower.

By the time he made it back to Ravenclaw tower and had answered the riddle, there were quite a few people already up and beginning their morning routines within the common room. They all stopped and stared at him as he entered all covered in sweat. His t-shirt clung to his chest, which had begun to muscle-up nicely in the past few months and a lot of the girls who were watching either blushed or giggled and ogled him. Harry had the distinct impression of a piece of meat being eyed by a hungry predator. The boys on the other hand, noticed the girl's reactions and scowled at the first-year. Shrugging his shoulders, harry made his way up to his room, where by now Maximus had awoken and was demanding his breakfast. Harry retrieved the bowl he had brought for such a purpose and then removed a bottomless bag that contained the raw meat he had brought that was under a stasis charm. He proceeded to feed maximus, who went suddenly quiet as he saw the food and lunged onto it as if he hadn't eaten in years. Harry snorted and gathering his clothes for the day, went and had a shower.

Harry arrived back down in the common room a half an hour later with maximus perched on his shoulder, looking imperiously at everyone who was in the common room. The room went quiet as they noticed the first year, but harry was sure it was because of Maximus. He found Daphne sitting alone on a love seat and so went over and sat next to her.

"Good Morning!" He said brightly. Daphne seemed to be absorbed in her book as she barely looked up to see who it was, although harry had no doubt she knew his voice by now and merely said quietly

"Good morning." She then continued her reading and harry took the hint that she wished not to talk. He then noticed that many people were looking at him and he gave a friendly smile, saying

"I know ladies that I am attractive, but please don't stare. I won't bite if you wish to talk to me." Upon saying this, he gave his lop-sided grin that was a Potter trait and many of the girls giggled and blushed at his flirting. The boys scowled a bit more and Simpkin the prefect walked up to him with an authoritative air about him that reminded harry of Percy weasley when he was in prefect mode.

"You there!" He said a little louder than necessary, no doubt to garner a bit of attention of himself, harry thought.

"Who me?" Harry asked, pretending to be as stupid as this prefect apparently was.

"Yes. You do know that is an unauthorised pet. First years are only allowed an owl, a cat or a toad. I will have to deduct twenty points and take you to see Professor Flitwick." Harry looked at the idiot in question incredulously and asked

"So that is it. No investigation on your part. No gathering facts to see if what you have claimed is true? You are going to make a spectacle of this, even though you don't know if you are wrong?" The perfect idiot, her, prefect simply puffed up his chest importantly and shook his head, saying

"The rules are the rules, Mr…?"

"Potter. You would have known that if you have bothered listening to Penny last night when she introduced us." Harry mentioned casually as he rose, stretching as he winked at Daphne, who had broken herself away from her book and whose lips were twitching at the edges as she knew what was going to happen. Penny who had been about to intervene, also saw that interplay and sat back with a slight smile on her face, as she didn't like Simpkin anyway.

Harry followed the prefect down the stairs from Ravenclaw tower and down the hallway to the professor's office, where the boy asked him to wait. He then knocked on the door and when bid to enter, did so, shutting the door behind him. Harry waited outside of the office for a few minutes, patting Maximus and commenting mentally that this boy was one of those idiots who must be endured, which Maximus agreed with, suggesting he would probably taste bad. Finally Simpkin opened the door and motioned harry inside.

Upon entering, harry found the office to be a veritable chaos of books that were stacked in high towers around them, with a small path leading from the door to the Professor's desk, where there were two seats. Harry greeted the professor

"Good morning, professor Flitwick. I hope you are well today?" Harry said with a smile. The professor returned the smile, which made Simpkin frown and begin to have a sinking feeling.

"yes, a very good morning Mr. potter. I did not expect to see you here so early though." He mentioned, glancing over at the prefect who had remained standing.

"I understand Professor. However, I wasn't given much choice as Prefect Simpkin decided that I must be in breach of school rules because of Maximus here, even though he did not ask me why I had brought Maximus and whether I had special dispensation to do so. He just assumed I had broken the rules and did not bother to check otherwise." Harry said this with a completely straight face, although inside his grin was huge, especially when he glanced over his shoulder and saw the prefect's face rapidly paling as he realised everything Harry had said was true and that Professor Flitwick had not even asked about the griffin.

"Yes, I assumed that was the case, but thought I would first check with you. I will see you in the common room in a few minutes Mr. Potter. I need to have a word with Mr. Simpkin here." Harry nodded and getting up, he smiled slightly at Simpkin, who looked slightly green and exited the office and headed back to the tower. Everyone except Daphne and Penny looked surprised when harry arrived back in the common roo with Maximus still on his shoulder and without the prefect. He winked at Penny who smiled back with a small blush on her cheeks. Hermione looked relieved that he hadn't been expelled, but still was concerned if her chewing on her bottom lip was any indication. Padma, who had only just come down, met harry at the love seat as he reached it and greeted him

"Good morning harry. Where were you so early?" She asked with a smile. Harry, sitting down and patting the spot next to him as Daphne reached up from his other side to scratch behind Maximus's head, said "Well, the fifth year male prefect took it into his head that I must be breaking the rules because I had a griffin with me, so without asking, he took me to our head of house, who of course had met Maximus at my birthday." Padma grinned hearing this and asked

"Is he in much trouble do you think?" Harry shrugged slightly as to not dislodge maximus and answered

"Well considering how pale he was looking when I left, he didn't expect to be the one in the wrong."

At that point the common room door opened again and a very chagrined prefect walked back in followed by a bemused professor Flitwick.

Harry was slightly in awe of the way the professor managed to gain the attention of the whole room while being such a small person. While he didn't say anything they didn't already know, he did it in a way that suggested he was happy for them to drop in for any reason, no matter how trivial. It made him much more approachable than professor McGonagall. Finally he concluded by handing out everyone's schedules. Considering it was a Sunday, professor Flitwick suggested

"First years, I suggest you follow Miss Clearwater and her assistant Mr. Simpkin to the great hall for breakfast. Once you had eaten, may I suggest you familiarise yourself with the castle and where exactly your classes are going to be held." Upon saying this, he stepped down from the table he had been using as a platform and quickly left the common room, no doubt on his own way to breakfast. Rising to his feet, Harry took Maximus back to his room, where he left him to make a nest out of his bed, to come back downstairs, where the girls were just getting ready to follow the prefects downstairs. They were all still giggling at Professor Flitwick's reference to the male prefect as penny's assistant. The prefect in question, who was still stinging from the rebuke he had been given earlier by the professor, chose to ignore them as well as the smirk on Penny's face.

Harry walked up to his three friends and bowing before Daphne in an overly dramatic fashion, asked

"Fair maiden. May I have the honour of escorting you to break your fast?" Daphne without even an eye twitch, replied formally

"You may, kind sir." Saying this, she linked her arm in his elbow and harry led her and his two other giggling friends through the halls, following a giggling penny who thought the display quite cute. They made it down to breakfast with no problem and, thanking Penny, they sat down and began serving themselves. Harry saw Susan entering the hall with her friend Hannah and he called out to her, waving cheerily. Susan, hearing harry and blushing at being the attention of half the hall, waved back with a small smile, while Hannah grinned and whispered into Susan's ear, causing her to blush more. Harry chuckled and decided he would much prefer his Hufflepuff friends ate with him and therefore determined to do something about it later.

Once breakfast was concluded, Harry suggested to his friends that he take them on a tour of the castle as he had been given a lot of information about where things were in the castle by his father. Padma and Daphne, who knew of the marauders and their escapades, agreed readily enough. Hermione was a little unsure at first, but when the others agreed so readily, she also agreed. Harry then spent the next three hours leading a tour of the castle, showing the girls all of the classes as well as several short-cuts they were bound to find useful, while regaling them about certain pranks his father and his friends had pulled during their time. On several occasions he had Padma in fits of laughter and Daphne's lips twitched regularly. Hermione didn't know whether to be amused or appalled at the amount of rules his father and friends had broken in their time at Hogwarts, but eventually settled for amusement. Harry was happy to see this as he wanted Hermione to relax and become a closer part of the group she had only just joined.

The group were all quite happy when they entered the great hall at lunchtime without getting lost. This had been the test harry had given them to see whether they had been paying attention or not. This had earned him a fake glare from each of the girls, but they were satisfied that they knew their way around the castle by the time they made it to lunch. Harry, spotting that Susan and Hannah were already in the hall, excused himself and walked over to the hufflepuff table. Hannah saw him coming over and nudged Susan and whispered something into her ear, causing her head to whip up to see harry approaching. Her face took on a red tinge. Harry smiled and said

"A good afternoon ladies!" Susan smiled at harry and said softly

"Hi harry, how are you?" Hannah grinned and returned a similar greeting. Harry smiled at them both and asked

"I was wondering if you fair ladies would care to join my friends and I at the raven claw for our afternoon repast?" This caused Susan's blush to deepen and Hannah's face to take on a pinkish hue.

"Are we allowed to?" Susan asked, worried about getting into trouble. Harry nodded, saying

"I checked the rules. While we have to sit at our house tables during the beginning and leaving feasts, we are allowed to sit at other tables during the year. Actually, it is encouraged as it promotes inter-house unity" On hearing this, both Susan and Hannah agreed and walked with harry over to ravenclaw table. His other friends who had been watching, separated to make room for the two hufflepuffs who sat opposite to harry and Daphne and in-between Padma and Hermione. Introductions were quickly made and harry asked everyone's opinion of the castle. Both Susan and Hannah admitted they had gotten lost once or twice, but eventually found their way. They marvelled at how big the castle truly was and worried about how they would make it in-between classes without being late to their next class. Harry promised he would show them a few short cuts later, to which they thanked him.

Having had enough of being inside, harry suggested to everyone that they explore the grounds while they still could as soon it would be too cold. Everyone agreed, so they spent the afternoon exploring the grounds, meeting Hagrid and his dog, Fang and skipping stones along the black lake with the giant squid throwing the stones back to them in a sort of game. Harry on inspiration, went up to Ravenclaw tower and retrieved Maximus and let him play around on the lawn in front of the castle and the black lake. He had a great time, chasing butterflies and the girls, pouncing on them and then running away when the girls, shrieking from being scared, chased the griffin across the grounds. Harry smiled as all of the girls became enamoured with maximus and eventually all took turns to carry him in their arms when he wore himself out from running around too much. Lying in bed later that night and going through his memories during his occlumency exercises, harry decided it had been a great dayand a perfect way to bring all of his friends together as a group.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: hello everyone. Thank you once more for the positive reviews. Don't really have much to say today, so enjoy.

Chapter 14.

Friday evening of the first week at Hogwarts found Harry sitting behind his desk in his bedroom, writing a letter to his family. He had written a letter during a break on his first day of classes to let them know which house he had been sorted into. Now he was letting them know how his first week had gone and was thinking back on his first lessons.

The first lesson on the Monday had been charms with professor Flitwick. This class had been with the Hufflepuffs and Harry could already see that the separation of the houses had been ingrained into the first years by the way they separated the class into two separate sides. Harry would have none of that though and deliberately moved and sat next to Susan and Hannah in the middle of the class. Daphne, Padma and Hermione paused for a moment and then followed his lead by sitting next to and around the two hufflepuffs. One of the boys, Harry wasn't surprised to see it was Ernie McMillan, challenged them on their seating arrangements.

"We are sitting with our friends. Just because they are hufflepuffs doesn't mean we think they have the plague. No matter who is in my group of friends, be they hufflepuff, ravenclaw, Gryffindor or Slytherin, I will sit with them." Harry stated in a loud voice that carried through the classroom.

"10 points to ravenclaw!" Professor Flitwick called out as he approached his lectern in the front of the class. Harry hadn't noticed his arrival, but he had obviously been there long enough to hear both the challenge and his response. The awarding of points not only diffused the situation but the realisation of the professor being in the classroom caused everyone to draw their attention to him, which harry suspected was one of his main goals in awarding the points, along with supporting Harry's views.

The class was fairly simple as the professor went through what they were going to be learning this year and introducing them to their first charm, that being the colour changing charm. Everyone was able to change the piece of parchment they were using to the colour they were desiring within a few tries. Harry decided to show off a little so began waving his wand and casting continuously for the next twenty minutes. By the time he was done the whole class room was a deep blue with bronze highlights, including the desks. Some of the ravenclaws glared at him for his mastery of the material and some of the hufflepuffs looked at him in awe. Professor Flitwick just chuckled on the other hand and awarded another five points to ravenclaw for his stellar wand-work.

Harry felt satisfied as he walked out of the charms class. Daphne walking alongside him, glanced at him from the corner of her eyes and remarked

"Showing off a bit then weren't we?" harry just shrugged, smiling a little. Hermione huffed a little at being shown up by harry; while Padma simply looked amused and Susan and Hannah just looked at harry in a slight amount of awe. The six friends then separated as the Hufflepuffs had herb ology with the Gryffindor house and ravenclaw had a break. The Ravenclaw contingent headed to the library to complete the assigned homework professor Flitwick had given them on the colour-changing charm, which they did so within the hour they had before lunch. They then met up with Susan and Hannah again, this time sitting with them at the hufflepuff table to the surprise of the hufflepuffs around them, which harry chose to ignore. He hoped that soon enough, their behaviour will be accepted as normal, which will then encourage others to do the same.

After lunch, the Hufflepuffs had a free period while the ravenclaws went for their first transfiguration lesson. He walked in, ignoring the cat on the desk and sat down in a desk towards the front of the class. Daphne sat next to him with Padma and Hermione sitting to his other side. Harry then took out his textbook and parchment and quill and waited while talking quietly with his friends. The class began to fill up and for this lesson, the class was taken with the Slytherins. They filed in and took seats near the back with Draco Malfoy leading the procession. He glanced once at harry and seeing the boy looking back, shifted his eyes away. Harry smirked a little at this as he had obviously intimidated the boy back on the train which he was still smarting from.

When everyone was seated, the cat on the desk leapt off and transformed into the form of their transfiguration professor. Everyone, including harry, applauded the piece of magic.

"Transfiguration is one of the most difficult and complex of the magics you will learn within Hogwarts." Professor McGonagall began, "Consequently if I find anyone fooling around or misbehaving in a way that will endanger another student, you will be asked to leave and never come back. This is your only warning." Harry noticed that the explanation was somewhat different to the original speech that McGonagall had given, but thought it was actually more informative as to what she actually meant by fooling around. The professor then went into a lengthy lecture about transfiguration, which required a lot of note-taking on the part of the students. Harry thought that perhaps her explanation was overly technical, especially for students with no formal education and no initial concept of the magics involved, unless they had done reading in advance like he had.

When each of them were given a match to transfigure into a needle, harry concentrated on visualising the changes from a wooden match with a sulphur head into a metal needle with a hold in it. Waving his wand in the prescribed manner and visualising fully by using his occlumency, he cast the spell and watched in satisfaction as his match changed into a needle. The professor was at the other end of the class, so did not notice his success. However, his friends did and were quick to ask him how he managed the change.

"The idea of transfiguration is to understand the concept of the magic and the visualisation involved." Harry began to explain, not realising half the class were listening to him. "The more you understand about the change, the less magic is required for the change, but the more detail you do not understand, then the more magic and concentration is required. This is a relatively simple change as the match and needle are similar in size, the number of letters in the words are the same and the weight is not much different. Therefore, the visualisation is most important for this change. You need to see the whole process of changing the match into metal, to see it shaping to a point at one end and an eye forming at the other. Putting that all together and keeping the process in your mind's eye, you then cast the spell, as so" As he had been saying this, he reversed the transfiguration with a brief flick, causing the professor's eyes to widen as she was now also paying attention. He then cast the spell again and this time transfigured the match into a needle with a fine engraving of the Ravenclaw crest on the middle of the needle. Everyone murmured in appreciation and turned to their work, using Harry's explanation to try their own work.

"20 points to ravenclaw, Mr. Potter." Professor McGonagall announced behind him, making him jump slightly. Turning, he saw the professor behind him with a small smile on her face.

"That is 10 points for not only a successful transfiguration, but also being able to reverse it and an additional 10 points for your explanation to your friends." She indicated his friends, who all had successfully completed the task.

"Thank you professor." He said politely with a small smile on his face. The professor nodded and moved off to help those who were still having problems. Harry began playing with the spell, changing the match and needle back and forth and then changing what materials the needle was made from, finally coming up with a finely carved bronze and steel needle shaped as an eagle, earning another 10 points. Harry could see that Hermione was a little miffed at his skill, but also saw that she saw it more as a challenge to try to best him.

Tuesday consisted of the first herb ology and potions lessons for Ravenclaw. Herb ology was held with the Slytherins again and was an introduction into the plants they would be looking at this year, all of which were pretty harmless to first-years. As the lesson was a double, they were put into pairs where they re-potted Dittany plants from seedling trays into small pots. Harry joined with Padma and Daphne partnered with Hermione for this practical lesson. They all found the work enjoyable and completed their work five minutes early, earning 5 points apiece for a good job. They then cleaned up and went to lunch. Lunch consisted of soup and sandwiches, which they consumed while talking about their classes with Susan and Hannah.

"So you have your first potions lesson next?" Susan asked the four Ravenclaws. Hermione nodded, saying

"Yes, I am very excited to get started. It looks like a fascinating subject!" Susan and Hannah looked at each other, as if not sure what to say. Hermione, seeing this asked

"What's wrong?" Susan, after a moment's hesitation began talking

"I'm not sure if any of your older year Ravenclaws have told you, but the potions professor is quite strict. We had potions with the Slytherins Monday afternoon and it was not pleasant. He seemed to be in quite a bad mood, but complimented the Slytherins for doing things like having their potion's kits out, while deducting points from us for such things as breathing too loudly. I'd be careful." Hermione looked sceptical, but nodded her head to say she understood the warning.

Harry, who knew all too well of the proclivities of the professor from his previous time, chose to say nothing and let Snape's actions prove whether he was just the same as in the previous world, or somehow different. He followed Hermione and the other 'claws to the dungeons where the potions class was held. It was at this time that Harry first encountered Neville Longbottom. He had been waiting with Daphne Hermione and Padma for a few minutes when the Gryffindor part of the class arrived together. Neville Longbottom was apparently their leader as he led the contingent down. To his left and right were Seamus Finnegan and Ronald weasley and they were laughing and joking with Neville as they arrived. Neville had a condescending look on his face as he talked to the people around him as if he was humouring them being in his presence. Harry snorted at this and ignored Longbottom. Neville must have heard him though because he seemed to focus on harry and stepping forward, extended his hand as if from a noble to a peasant and said

"Neville Longbottom, heir to the ancient and most noble house of Longbottom." Harry snorted, not bothering to hold out his own hand and said

"I am well aware of who you are longbottom, after all you announced it to every first year in the ante chamber before the sorting." Neville's chubby face mottled red in anger at the perceived slight and growled

"You may want to consider your actions. I am the boy-who-lived and I can make your life very unpleasant if you do not choose to ally with me." Harry, looking at Longbottom from the corner of his eye, said in a drawling aristocratic voice

"Heir longbottom, if it was a choice between allying with you and choosing to ally with a flubberworm, I would seriously consider choosing the flubberworm. While you may think your threats actually mean something to me, let me disabuse you of this notion. I, Harry James potter, heir to the most ancient and noble houses of potter and Black do not fear you or your allies. If you choose to retaliate in some futile attempt to either gain face or try to force me to ally with you, be warned that I do not suffer fools or idiots lightly." There was a stunned silence as everyone in the class stared at Harry in a mixture of awe, respect and some in loathing. Before anything else could be said, the door to the potions class opened and professor Snape appeared and gestured them all inside.

Everyone entered the classroom, some still whispering about Harry's words to Longbottom, others too scared of professor Snape to do anything more than quickly walk to their seats and sit down. Harry walked next to Daphne, whose lips were twitching from Harry's words and sat down at a table near the middle of the classroom. Professor Snape slammed the door as the last student entered the class, making the first-year squeak in fright and everyone else to fall silent as he strode forward, with his robes billowing behind him as he approached his desk. Turning to face the class, he looked at everyone with his deep obsidian eyes. Harry had to respect that he could control a class as well as he did.

"There will be no foolish wand waving in this class." He whispered in his silky voice "Consequently, I doubt many of you would even think this is magic. I doubt many of you would understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron, with liquids that can ensnare the mind. I can teach you how to bottle death and brew glory, for those of you with the disposition."

Snape looked around for a moment, gauging the effect his words had. Harry kept his mind blank as he felt the professor's eyes on him and saw the surprised flicker in his eyes. It was when he saw the professor's eyes land on Neville longbottom that he saw a cruel amusement enter the potion 'master's eyes.

"Although some of you may have appeared here with talents so formidable, you do not think you need to be taught!" He almost sneered, looking directly at Neville Longbottom who stared back with arrogance in his eyes.

"Mr. Longbottom, our new…celebrity." Snape whispered softly. Everyone stayed silent as they viewed the tableau between the professor and the boy-who-lived.

"Tell me Longbottom, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" He asked silkily. Longbottom looked confused and Snape sneered

"Don't know? What about if you tell me where I might be able to find a Bezoar?" longbottom seemed to grit his teeth as his face reddened and he said

"I don't know sir." Snape's eyes glimmered in triumph as he continued

"And tell me Longbottom, what is the difference between Monkshood and wolfs bane?" Longbottom repeated himself

"I don't know sir." Snape's lip curled at this and he said with clear contempt

"Clearly, fame isn't everything, is it Mr. Longbottom?" He then turned his head from the now seething Gryffindor and looking at harry he said

"Mr. Potter, perhaps you may be able to illuminate our minds with the answers to the previous questions?" Harry smiled politely and answered

"Indeed sir. Asphodel and wormwood make a powerful sleeping draught so potent that it is known as the draught of living death. A bezoar is found in the stomach of a ruminating animal such as a goat and can act as an antidote to most poisons. Finally Monkshood and wolfs bane are different names for the same plant, just different varieties that also fall under the muggle name of Aconite. Sir." Harry supplied in a respectful tone.

Snape looked a little surprised that the first-year knew the answers, but recovered from it quickly. A small smile appeared on his lips and nodding his head in respect, he said

"Well done potter. It is clear someone has prepared well for this class. 10 points to ravenclaw." This earned harry respectful looks from his ravenclaw classmates and hateful looks from the Gryffindor's, particularly longbottom. Snape then set them to making a potion to cure boils, which harry and Daphne managed with an economy of movement and communication, ending with a nearly flawless potion at the end of class. Professor Snape was just complimenting them when there was a violent hiss at the rear of the classroom. Longbottom it seemed was as weak at potions as he was in his previous reality. He had apparently put the porcupine quills in the cauldron before taking it off the fire, melting his and Ron's cauldron, covering them both in spilled potion and boils. Harry heard Snape cursing under his breath as he swept towards the two boys and waving his wand, vanished the spilled potion.

"Stupid boy!" Snape seethed. "Apparently your fame also affects your senses as you are too stupid to read simple instructions on the board! It specifically says not to put the quills in until after you take it of the fire! 20 points from Gryffindor for your complete stupidity you dunderhead! Go to the hospital wing!"

Harry had to say it was the first potions lesson he had thoroughly enjoyed before with Snape teaching. He guessed the fact that he strikingly resembled his mother than his father probably helped the potions master not to resent him. From the shadow of a smirk on Daphne's face, he could tell she enjoyed the bumbling of the boy-who-lived as much as he had. The Gryffindor's behind them were very quiet as everyone exited the classroom and went to dinner. Hermione was talking animatedly with Padma about the potion they had made and about what a great lesson it was. Many of the ravenclaws agreed with Hermione, causing harry to snort internally. He knew the only reason why it had been enjoyable was because he had been keeping an eye on both Harry and Longbottom and had found a perfectly willing patsy in longbottom.

Wednesday morning was a double defence against the dark arts and the class was as useless as it was in his original world with the stuttering Quirrel. The room stank as much as the lesson in harry's opinion and he made arrangements with Daphne, Padma and Hermione to ask the older years what they had learnt in their first year so they would know what they were tested on at the end of the year so they could at least learn that. Astronomy had consisted of a single lesson of theory during the afternoon on Wednesday with a practical at midnight that evening. All the practical consisted of was filling out star-charts in the chill night air. Harry wondered for the hundredth time what magical use astronomy actually was and determined to ask in the near future, but some time when he wasn't so tired and more able to absorb the knowledge.

Thursday and Friday were repeats pretty much of Monday and Tuesday's schedule, just reversed with Transfiguration in the morning and charm sin the afternoon on Thursday and potions and herb ology on Friday.

Harry entered in all the details about his first classes to his parents and about how many points he had won for his house. He talked also about his friends, including Hermione and let Iris know that he would keep an eye out for them as her friends as well. He asked iris how her progress with her practice wand was going and how many spells she had learned with it. He told her also he missed her and their conversations they had. Signing off the letter saying he would write again soon, he then took out another piece of parchment and wrote a quick letter to ivy, telling her about the magic he was learning and how much he missed her. He told her to be good for mum and he would see her soon. Folding the smaller letter within the parchment of the first, he sealed the larger letter and placed it aside to be posted in the morning. He then rose and prepared for bed, moving Maximus over to his side of the bed and soon fell asleep with thoughts of his family filling his dreams.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: here is the next chapter.

Chapter 15.

That Saturday morning, Harry rose earlier than most of ravenclaw house and quickly made his way to the seventh floor under a disillusionment charm. Reaching the tapestry of Barnnabus the barmy, he quickly walked back and forth thinking of the room of hidden things. When a door appeared in the wall, Harry quickly opened the door and stepped inside, making sure to close the door behind him, where it then vanished into the wall.

Looking around himself, Harry saw that the room looked pretty much the same as he had remembered it from his last trip into the room of lost things in his previous reality. He then wished for the room to present him with all of the trunks that are present within the room and a large assortment of trunks appeared in front of him. They ranged in age from a very ancient looking trunk that must have been a couple of centuries old at least to one that appeared to be only 10 years old at the most. Moving the junk around the entrance so that he had a fairly clear space to work in, Harry then levitated all of the trunks down from the pile they had been arranged in by the room so that they were all sitting on the floor. With a large swish he then incanted the unlocking charm and put a fair amount of power into it.

Out of the 49 trunks that had appeared, 25 responded to the unlocking charm. The other trunks were locked using other forms of magic or even blood, so harry decided to leave those for another time and asked the room to put them back where they were previously, causing them to disappeared back into the huge room. Harry then investigated each of the trunks and found that 12 of the trunks were actually old school trunks that were obviously left by students in the past and had one simple trunk-size compartment. Harry emptied these and shrunk them down while asking the room to banished the contents, save the books back into the room. He then closed and shrunk the trunks down and put them to the side and stacked the books next to them.

The remaining 13 trunks were either multi-compartment or trunks with enlarged single compartments which was what harry was really looking for when he asked for the trunks rom the room, however he didn't know if the intelligence of the room extended to be able to tell the difference between an ordinary trunk and a multi-compartment one. Harry again investigated each of the trunks, emptying them of their contents and banishing all of the useless items, such as old quills, old assignments, dried up bottles of ink and clothing back into the room's depths and keeping the books in a couple of stacks near the shrunken trunks. The single compartment enlarged trunks he again shrunk down as he didn't have much use for them at the moment and put them with the others. This left him with 5 trunks that were multi-compartmental.

Three of the trunks had three compartments, one had 5 compartments and the final had 7 compartments. Harry first checked the 7 compartment trunk to see what configuration it was, to see if it was anything like mad-eye Moody's trunk from his previous reality. He was in luck as the final compartment of this one appeared to be a room-sized compartment with stone walls. Harry quickly shrunk down the other multi-compartment trunks and combined with the other single compartment trunks, levitated them all into the last compartment of the trunk before him. Once having done this, he then moved the books he had already decided to go through later at his leisure into the trunk in a neat pile, as he knew he would probably need as much room as possible.

Harry then moved the trunk over to the wall where the door had been and then standing next to it asked the room to bring all of the books within the room to the space before him. He figured that this way would be safer as he had been given quite a scare when the trunks had come sailing towards him, fearing that they would crush him. As it was, over 400 books sailed through the air and landed in a pile before him. Harry could see that a lot of the books were copies, but decided he could make some money from them by either selling them to the second-hand shop in diagon Alley or if the books were of sufficient good quality or age, the other book shops in diagon or Nocturne Alley. Swishing his wand, he incanted

"Pack!" The books then rose into the air and flew into the trunk next to him, stacking themselves into neat piles in the trunk.

Once all of the books were packed, harry closed the compartment and with some hope asked for all of the keys from the room. A large pile of keys appeared, but Harry quickly sifted through them, his hopes diminishing as he searched through. Lucky for him though at the bottom of the pile, he found a ring of keys with 7 keys on it. He tried the keys in the locks of the trunk and to his great joy, the keys fit. He then locked the compartment with the books in it and opening the previous compartment, which looked to be twice the size of a normal compartment, turned and requested the room to present him with all of the magical instruments within the room. All sorts of magical devices appeared, most of which were broken, but there were a lot of devices which looked to be still in fine working order. What he found the funniest of the things that had been lost were the remembrals. Forgetting something that helped you to remember when you forgot something for some reason caught Harry as funny.

Separating the junk from the working instruments, at least for now, harry put all of the remembrals, dark magic detectors, sneakescopes, dishonesty detectors, foe glasses and self-stirring rods into the compartment of his newly purloined trunk. The most interesting magical items he found though were the 23 brooms that still looked to be in good working order, which he planned to donate to madam Hooch, as he doubted the brooms that everyone had to use for flying lessons were in any better quality than in his previous reality. While they were not top-of-the-line brooms, they were perfectly fine for novice flyers to learn on. He also found 2 invisibility cloaks, which seemed to be working okay, but wanted to take them to dervish and banges to get the enchantments looked at.

The prize though, Harry thought, was to be found in a small polished wooden box that was sitting innocuously at the bottom of the pile of devices. There was a powerful locking charm on the box, but by overpowering his unlocking charm and then casting finite on the box, the box came open in his hands. What he found there took his breath away. Sitting encased in velvet within the box were four time-turners. Harry wondered what in hell someone would actually need four time-turners for, until he looked closer at the velvet lining and saw a small label under each of the time-turners. Apparently the two turners at the top were for going back in hours and the first had an effective range of 24 hours, while the second had a range of up to a week. Harry guessed this was to do with the amount of the sand that was in the turners as the second turner had twice the amount of the sand as the first turner.

The second row of turners were what really made his eyes widen though, as he realised the value of what he now had in front of him. The turner in the bottom left hand corner could go back in days, not hours and it could go back up to two weeks. The last turner was also for complete days and could go back to the maximum of a month at a time. Harry closed the box with trembling hands, knowing he now had a very powerful tool in his hands, but wanted to find out a lot more about time-turners before he started playing around with them. He figured he would probably have to wait until at least the Christmas holidays before he had a chance to visit Nocturne Alley, that was if he could get away from Potter manor to do so, but perhaps it would be the summer holidays before he had the chance.

Harry then cast tempus and seeing it was nearly time for the breakfast to be served in the great hall, he locked the trunk and shrinking it down, stuck it into his pocket. He re-cast the disillusion charm and exited the room after the door had reappeared. He met Daphne, Padma and Hermione s they were coming out of Ravenclaw tower and just explained he had been on a walk when they asked where he had been so early. They accepted this as it was known that he would exercise first thing in the morning. After breakfast, he went with his friends up to Ravenclaw tower to gather their books and homework and went to the library. Harry, knowing the homework from his previous reality, but not having done a good job, did the research with Hermione, Padma, and Daphne and ended up writing an essay very similar to the quality of the three girls. He also found that by doing the extra research, he also gained a much better understanding for not only the lesson they had done, but it would then help for their progression onto harder and more complex magic.

Harry now realised that by slacking off so much in his first couple of years, he had really handicapped himself when it came to not only transfiguration but also charms and potions as he needed a good grounding in the fundamentals of each form of magic in order to progress further in the art without having so much difficulty. He now suspected that was why he had had so much trouble when it came to the summoning charm in fourth year, as he had been all too eager to follow the lazy friend, rather than the intelligent friend.

All four had finished their work by lunchtime, by which time they had also been joined by the two hufflepuffs who also had completed their work. Harry excused himself after lunch, saying he had a small errand to run and quickly made his way back up to the room of hidden things to grab the brooms. He shrunk the brooms and putting them into a bag he summoned from the room, proceeded to walk out of the castle and down to the quidditch locker rooms and the office of Madam Hooch. The flying instructor was surprised to see a first-year before the mandatory flying lessons, but was delighted when he told her he had found these brooms with the help of the elves of the castle and thought they would be better used for flying classes than collecting dust. She thanked him with a smile and said she would be sure that they would come in handy. She also awarded him 10 points for his thoughtfulness.

Walking back in to the castle, he was in time to see Susan and Hannah making their way from where he knew Hufflepuff common room to be and asked where they were going.

"Well, Hermione suggested we all meet in the library again as there is not any places we can meet up, being from different houses. We had just dropped off our books and gotten some books we had been meaning to read." Hannah explained, with Susan nodding. Harry smiled and holding out an elbow to each girl, he said

"What an excellent idea. Since the library is on the way to ravenclaw tower, may I escort you two lovely ladies?" Both girls blushed a little, but placed their arms in his and he led them both up the stairs and to the library. Arriving at the large double doors which were the entrance to the library, he took both girl's hands and placing a kiss on their knuckles, first Suzan and then Hannah, said with an impudent grin

"Dear ladies, I must depart from you here as I must find my own material to peruse at this establishment of learning. Departing will be such sweet sorrow, but we shall meet again shortly!" With a flourish, he turned and walked off swiftly down the corridor towards Ravenclaw tower, leaving two blushing and giggling girls behind him.

Harry raced up the stairs and once he had answered the riddle, he bounded up the stairs and into his room. He took out the book he had received for his birthday that copied other books and made his way back down to the library once he had re-locked his trunk. He put his bag down on the chair he was going to sit into next to Susan and then walked off in search of a book to copy. While harry had been in the library many previous times in his reality before, he had really only used it for the bare minimum required to pass his classes, so there was a lot he did not know about the library. However, there was one section that called to him above others and it was this siren call that he responded to. Reaching it in a roundabout way so that the librarian would not notice him, he reached the section that was sectioned off with a rope; the restricted section. Harry saw many books that were within reach of his wand and so decided to select a book at random. Reaching over he tapped one of the book spines and then tapped the front tab that stuck out from inside the book. There was a muted flash from his book, indicating success and he quickly made his way back along the path he took to reach the section and made it back to the table that his friends were studying at. He sat down, giving Susan a smile as he moved his bag from the chair and opened his book to see what he had managed to copy. At first, Harry was disappointed as he thought he had found an early version of Gilderoy Lockhart as the book described a warlock's adventures as he travelled the world, discovering strange creatures and villages that had troublesome dark creatures preying on them and dealing with the problems. As he flipped through the book though, he realised that this guy had actually done the things he claimed as not only did he have the name of the spell, but also a diagram showing the wand movement and the pronunciation. Harry grew excited at this and quickly turned back to the beginning of the book to begin reading.

The writer of the book had apparently been a wand-for-hire in the 19th century and had travelled extensively through Europe and Africa in his travels, learning as he went and helping people when he could. It was his willingness to help people that enabled him to learn so much magic, for when he helped a particular village, they were usually more than happy to share any magical knowledge they may have, or let him investigate the local area, which could often turn up ancient tomes or forgotten lore which he would not only share with any magicals in the village, but take a copy for his own use. It was through this that he developed a formidable repertoire of spells that proved quite the arsenal when he faced the dark forces on his travels. There were spells in Latin, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Chinese and Danish from Europe and Asia. There were also quite a few spells that were cast in Indian, Arabic and a multitude of different African languages, some of which were no longer spoken.

Harry, deciding this was an excellent opportunity, took out parchment, a quill and ink and began making notes when he came across a spell, including wand movement and the way to pronounce the incantation with a description of what the spell was supposed to do. He decided that these spells would best be practised in the room of requirement, as while they were not dark, they were certainly dangerous if used inappropriately and he did not want to have any accidents. Harry briefly considered whether there would be any information on time-turners in the restricted section, but decided it was probably not worth the risk of sneaking into the restricted section, especially if he didn't have his father's cloak available to him. Therefore he dismissed it for now and spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday either reading his new favourite book, or in light conversation with his friends.

During the nights though, harry went through the trunk he had salvaged from the room of hidden things and went through the inventory of books he had taken. He found plenty of books that looked interesting to him and when he found these, he would copy them using his book. He decided that he would sell all of the books to the book-shops in Diagon and nocturne Alley, as it never hurt to have an independent source of funds. He knew that as of next year, according to tradition, he would be given the key to his trust vault which would then be his responsibility but figured his parents would be prouder if he found a way to begin making money earlier. That reminded harry that he also needed to look to see if there was anything else that could be quickly turned to money in the future from the room. He was a little chagrined that his Ravenclaw instinct had been to first grab all of the knowledge, rather than the most valuable items, but he knew he had plenty of time as no one else that he knew of had actually found the room, so as long as he was careful it would stay that way.

The next week passed pretty much as a repeat of the lessons from the previous week, just with different content. History of magic, which apparently was still taught by Binz, began this week on Mondays after lunch, but it wasn't really significant as all the ghost talked about was verbatim from the textbook. The only real change came on Wednesday night when it was discovered that there was a notice on the ravenclaw bulletin board about flying lessons the following day. Harry instantly noticed that there wasn't as much of the bragging he had seen in Gryffindor in ravenclaw. In fact as many of the 'claws were intellectuals, not many of them had ridden a broom before, so were rather nervous.

The next day found Harry standing between Susan and Padma with a broom next to him on the lawn near the transfiguration courtyard. Harry was thankful that the lesson was with hufflepuff as the rest of his house mates were so nervous, he was not sure that the attitudes of the other houses would not have grated on their already twanging nerves. Harry could understand the nervousness though. For as he once explained to Hermione when she was frustrated in his former life about not being good at flying, it was not a skill you could learn from a book.

Madam Hooch also seemed much more relaxed as well. This could be because of the class and who it contained, or it may have been the fact that the brooms they were using were markedly better than the pieces of crap they had to use beforehand. Either way, by the end of class, everyone had a good grasp on how to hover on a broom and manoeuvre it around while flying slowly. Harry behaved himself, considering how nervous his house mates were and took it easy on his broom, although he saw madam hooch watching him at his ease with using the broom. Harry decided though that even if he had the skills to be on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team this year, he would not try for preferential treatment as he had enough of that previously. He didn't mind being praised for his academics, but he figured there was a very good reason for first-years not being allowed a broom. He decided that would be another research topic he would have to look into in the future.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Hi all. Thanks for the reviews once more. Here's the latest.

Chapter 16.

It was early Monday morning when harry found out that Neville had been put onto the Gryffindor team as their new seeker. He found out from a few friendly Gryffindor's, those who were not enamoured with the boy-who-lived, exactly what had gone on. Apparently Neville still had problems with his memory, at least his grandmother thought so as she had sent him a remembral the morning that the Slytherin and Gryffindor house were due to have their flying lesson. Draco had done exactly the same thing as in his reality, snatching the remembral from Neville's hands and making fun of him for needing such an object. The situation had simmered down as Professor McGonagall had intervened before anything else could occur.

It had boiled over later on though during the flying lesson, when one of the Gryffindor's had fallen off of their broom and had to be taken to the hospital wing by madam Hooch. It turned out this was the only person who had been using one of the old brooms that hadn't been replaced by the ones that harry had donated. Neville must have dropped his remembral while flying and had not noticed it, because Malfoy had snatched the ball up from the ground and taken off with it, taunting Longbottom all the time. Neville had then gone on to chase Malfoy and perform a stupid and reckless stunt which nearly ended up with him smeared against the castle wall. Luckily he managed to save himself, but the remembral was broken. Apparently Gryffindor was so hard up for a seeker that even with his lack lustre performance, McGonagall put Neville on the team. Harry just shook his head when he heard this, wondering whether his own inclusion on the team in his original first year was also a put-up, even if he was excellent on a broom. This, once again, made his decision not to try-out, as in no way did he want to be compared to the boy-who-lived by anyone, at least not in such a public way.

/

It was the weekend at the end of September and the first staff meeting after the beginning of term was being held. They had gone through the usual problems being caused by the weasley twins and homesickness problems for some of the first-years, which was quite normal for a boarding school and seemed well in hand according to madam Pomfrey. Finally, Dumbledore got to the subject he was most interested in

"So can you all tell me how Mr. Longbottom is doing?" He asked with his eyes twinkling behind his half-moon spectacles. There was silence for a moment as the Professors were hesitant to say anything. This of course meant that Severus Snape was the first to speak.

"The boy is a menace in my class. I'll be surprised if he doesn't either kill himself or someone else if he does not put more of an effort into his studies." He said with a sneer. Madam Pomfrey couldn't help but nod in agreement as Neville had ended up in the hospital wing each and every time he went to a potions practical. Each mistake was something that was easily avoided.

Professor Flitwick then spoke up, saying

"Albas he isn't anything special to speak of when it comes to charms. He does the work and can nearly always get the spell by the end of class. However he is nowhere near the top of his class, yet alone his year group."

Professor McGonagall had to agree with Flitwick on this

"He doesn't show much of an aptitude in transfiguration either, Albas. He does boast a lot, but his skills do not match his boasting."

Snape sneered again, saying

"What do you expect? The boy is so arrogant because of his fame. He believes the sun shines out of his as…" Dumbledore frowned at his potions master, interrupting,

"That's enough Severus. You don't have to use such language!" Severus merely snorted at this. Fillius cleared his throat and when Dumbledore was looking at him, said

"Nevertheless Albas, what Severus says is right. He has a sense of entitlement as big as this castle, but his magic potential and his aptitude just doesn't match it." Sighing to himself, as he knew what his teachers said was true, he wished not for the first time that there was a different boy-who-lived. Neville's parents had been most obstinate and reticent to keep the boy humble and it was now coming home to roost.

"Very well. Can I have a progress report on how each of your houses' first years are doing?" He asked the four heads of house. Severus began as normal, since his report was the shortest.

"My snakes are adjusting to their new environment and the house politics well. There was been the usual back and forth between them and the first-year Gryffindor's but that is to be expected with Malfoy being the leader of his year-group and Longbottom being the opposing force in Gryffindor."

Minerva nodded at this, saying

"Indeed, young Neville has become the de facto leader within the first-years quite quickly. All of the boys and most of the girls follow his lead. The only dissenting ones seem to be Lavender Brown and the Patel girl. That has probably more to do with her sister in ravenclaw and her friendship with Potter than anything else." She finished.

Permona nodded, saying "Most of my 'puffs have formed a coherent group and rely on each other for support and help. I too, have only a couple that have an outside friendship, that being with the group of friends in ravenclaw, including Harry Potter." Dumbledore seemed surprised at hearing this as cross-house friendships did not often occur. He turned to Fillius with a questioning look. Fillius smiled proudly, saying

"Yes, my Ravens especially the group surrounding harry Potter are doing exceedingly well. They have a strong friendship with Miss Bones and Miss Abbott from hufflepuff, but are friendly to most students. In fact, Mr. Potter made quite the statement in my first class, stating no matter what house a person was in, if they were his friend, he would support them. He and his friends have shown this by being friendly with most of the student population, save for Mr. Malfoy, who seems intimidated by Mr. Potter and Mr. Longbottom, who does not seem to get along with Mr. Potter at all."

Albas looked concerned and murmured "Indeed?" Snape, whose sneer had not left his face, now smirked and said

"Yes, I believe I was there for the initial incident which caused the rift. Potter and his friends were waiting for class to begin when the mighty Longbottom and his entourage approached. Longbottom tried to befriend Potter, who really wasn't interested as he only has the one class with Longbottom and has his own group of friends he has built. When longbottom saw his lack of interest, he then proceeded to try and threaten Potter with his fame. "Snape almost grinned at the memory, then continued

"Potter did not appear impressed and told Longbottom point blank he didn't care for his threats and if he wanted to try something, to consider it most carefully." Dumbledore looked interested as McGonagall and Flitwick seemed to agree with the boy's assessment of his own capabilities.

"What of Mr. Potter? How is his progress?" Dumbledore asked.

"He is very gifted in charms. He always is able to be one of the first to cast the charm correctly and has shown a mastery of his magic which has impressed me." Fillius gave his report. Professor McGonagall nodded, continuing with her report

"The boy is as talented as his father, if not more so. He was able to do the needle transfiguration and reverse it with no problem and then explain it in such a way to his friends that most of them managed it by the end of the lesson. He has continued to impress throughout my lessons."

Looking at Snape, Dumbledore expected a scathing response, but he was surprised when the man said

"Potter appears to have his mother's gift when it comes to potions. He brews well." This impressed Dumbledore as that kind of report rarely came from Severus. Thanking his staff, he dismissed them, deciding to keep an eye on the young Potter's progress in the future.

/

Harry was enjoying his second time around at Hogwarts, especially without his fame following him around and causing problems. Not only had he made friends with Hermione, Padma Susan and Daphne, but he had also started to get to know Blaise Zabini. Blaise was a dark haired and dark-skinned boy with Mediterranean descent. He was a quiet person who made it a habit of watching people and studying them. This was why it had taken over two weeks before he and harry had gotten to know each other. Apparently harry had passed some kind of test because the Monday after their first flying lesson, when he had been down at ravenclaw table early and by himself for once, Blaise had sat at the table across from him and wished him a good morning. This had startled Harry and if not for his self-control, he may have done a spit-take at the boy's greeting, he was so surprised. However, since he did have a mouthful of food, he simply nodded in greeting. From this point, they had started a light conversation regarding their impressions of classes thus far and the teachers. Harry's other friends had soon joined them including the two Hufflepuffs so harry introduced Blaise to them all.

He soon grew on the group and began sitting with them in classes and during their homework time in the library. He had a dry sense of humour and an incisive mind. Harry could quite easily tell why he had been put into Ravenclaw and made him wonder why he hadn't been in Harry's previous life. The friendship between the two boys had further solidified when they both tried out for the house duelling team. There were three participants from each year and Harry was very confident of his skills, but had never seen either Daphne or Blaise duel before, so was unsure how they would do. Padma, being a pacifist due to her religion opted not to participate and Hermione did not consider it of any value to her studying. Harry very easily defeated Kevin entwhistle and Michael Cornfoot in his tryouts and he watched with amusement as Daphne mopped the floor with Morag McDougall and Mandy Brocklehurst. Blaise completed the trio quite easily and defeated his two opponents, Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein without breaking a sweat. From that point onwards, duelling practice was two nights a week and was overseen by Professor Flitwick, who seemed impressed with Harry's range of spells, especially the new ones he was trying to incorporate into his repertoire.

Before harry or his friends realised it, Halloween was coming and they had been at Hogwarts for almost two months. Harry awoke on the morning of Halloween and could smell baking pumpkin in the air due to the Hogwarts elves cooking up a storm for the Halloween feast. Harry for the first time felt he could celebrate this holiday as his parents were now alive, so he did not feel any guilt at celebrating with his friends. He knew in the back of his mind that Quirrel would probably try the same distraction tonight, but was sure since Hermione had so many friends now in her own house and in others that things would be fine. Oh how wrong he was.

They went through the morning class's fine and were learning the levitation charm in charms class. Hermione was surrounded by her friends and they all had a great time learning the charm, making their feathers fly around the room and engaged in mock battles with each other, causing much laughter and a cheerful grin on the professor's face. It was as they were leaving that disaster struck. Of course it came in the form of Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom who were glaring at each other from opposite sides of the door.

Hermione, who was writing up the last of her notes as they were walking out, was saying to Padma, who was walking next to her

"Can you believe that the other class is so far behind us? Professor Flitwick said it would be a couple of weeks yet before they even attempt the levitation charm. I don't understand why they aren't serious about learning magic like us." Padma nodded in agreement and was about to say something when she was interrupted by Malfoy.

"I'm not surprised your mud blood brain can't comprehend something Granger. After all you are inferior!" He sneered. Longbottom, who hadn't appeared to hear Malfoy entirely, was also glaring at Hermione, his face mottled in rage

"Malfoy is right. You don't belong here. Piss off where you came from you mud blood nerd!" Everyone heard this and gasped as he used the derogatory term. Unluckily for Longbottom, Flitwick also heard it and came out of his classroom, enraged.

"Mr. Longbottom! That will be 50 points from Gryffindor and a week's worth of detention for such atrocious behaviour! Don't let me hear you say something like that again, do you hear me?" The professor was so mad his magic was arcing around him, causing longbottom to nod quickly and cower in fear. By the time Harry looked around for Hermione, a grin still on his face from the dressing-down longbottom had received, Hermione was long gone. Looking to Padma, he said

"Can you find Hermione and make sure she is okay?" I think she would have gone to the girl's bathroom." Padma, giving Harry a weird look, nodded and he escorted her to the bathroom. They both heard the sniffles and sobs coming from the bathroom when they approached it and giving Padma a thankful look, said he would meet her in the great hall.

Padma came through the great hall doors ten minutes later, but was alone. When Harry gave her a questioning look, she shrugged her shoulders and said

"It just reminded Hermione of the bullying she used to go through at Primary school. Apparently the kids there were pretty rough on her. She said she would be fine, she just needs some time to have a good cry." Harry nodded and decided to check on her again in the afternoon if she hadn't appeared.

She did not appear for any of their afternoon classes and harry went back to the bathroom before going to the feast, determined she would be coming with him. He knocked on the door and called out

"Hermione, it's harry." There was a pause for a moment and Hermione called out,

"What are you doing here harry?" Harry smirked as he pushed the door open slightly and leaning on the frame, said

"I sent Padma here earlier to see if you were okay. She told me you wanted a good cry, so I came to see if you are ready to come to the feast. Despite what those two pricks said to you, you do have friends and we are all concerned for you." He heard sniffling again, but chose to ignore it and waited for her answer.

"I'll be out in a minute harry. You go down and I'll meet you there." She called out after a moment. Harry shook his head and then realised she wouldn't be able to see that and said

"Sorry Hermione, I can't do that. I wouldn't be a very good friend if I left you here and went off to a feast by myself. If you are worried about how you look after crying, I'll close the door and wait outside, alright?" Hermione, hearing this, smiled and felt a whole lot better. Unlocking the stall door, she came out of the stall and said

"That's fine. And Harry?"

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Thanks." She said to the closed door. He just smiled and stood back, waiting.

Unfortunately, the professor Quirrel of this time-line had apparently either led the troll in early or the troll was just a lot faster at coming up because as he turned to look down the hallway, his nose was assaulted with the stench of the oncoming troll and he saw it as it rounded the corner ahead. Harry quickly threw open the door to the bathroom, startling Hermione.

"Harry, what are you doing?" She asked, staring at his reflection as she continued washing her face.

"There's a troll in the hallway." He said, somewhat calmly. Harry wasn't sure then whether Hermione thought he was joking, or whether she was curious as to what a troll looked like, for she came up behind him and peered over his shoulder. She squeaked in shock as she saw the tall lumbering figure make its way towards them.

"What do we do Harry?" She asked in fear. Harry looked around and motioned her over to a far corner, which she quickly scuttled over to, her features pale. Harry slowly backed up as the tall magically reinforced creature slowly entered the bathroom.

The first thing I need to do, harry thought to himself as he back slowly away from the troll, is to get rid of that club. On thinking this, he raised his wand and incanted

"Confringo!" The spell hit the club half way up and disintegrated the club into splinters, leaving just a handle in the troll's hands. Throwing away the handle, the troll made to charge and Harry quickly incanted one of the Danish spells he had learned recently

"Mjolnir!" A beam of bright blue light flashed from Harry's wand and hit the troll squarely in the head, smashing its head against the wall behind it. The troll bounced back and looked at Harry in confusion for a moment, before its eyes rolled up in the back of its head and it collapsed to the floor with a massive thud which shook the room. Harry walked over to Hermione and asked

"Are you alright?" Hermione just blinked at him in absolute shock. Here was a boy who called her his friend, who just saved her from a mountain troll and knocked it out, just for her. She launched herself at harry and hugged him tightly, beginning to cry a little. Harry returned the hug and comforted her. He heard running steps outside and knew that his plan of going back to their common room with no one finding out were history. Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Snape and Quirrel came into the room at a run, but halted when they saw the troll laying on the floor. Quirrel clutched at his heart and sat down heavily, while the other three professors looked at the two students with amazement. Professor Flitwick was the first to recover as he rushed over and asked

"Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, are you alright?" Harry looked at the professor and smiled his lop-sided grin, saying

"A little damp and a little tired from the spells I used. Apart from that and a bit of shock at a troll coming upon us, we're both fine." The professor breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back to his colleagues. Professor McGonagall then asked

"Why aren't you two in your common room?" Harry looked confused and asked

"Why would we be in our common room? I had stopped by here to see if Hermione was ready to come down to the feast as she had been upset all day at what Longbottom had said to her. Apparently it came a little too close to how she used to be treated at her old school. Anyhow, we were about to make our way to the great hall when I spotted the troll coming down the hallway. I retreated in here to let Hermione know. I didn't get to the great hall so didn't hear any instruction about going to our common room." Professor McGonagall nodded, as she had heard from Flitwick about the punishment Longbottom had received for his earlier comments and her eyes softened at his act of friendship at coming to help Hermione.

Professor Flitwick then asked

"You mentioned spells Mr. Potter. What did you use to knock out the troll?" Harry smiled at the inquisitiveness from his head of house and answered

"Well I first decided I had to get rid of the club the troll was carrying so I cast confringo, exploding the top half of the club. The troll seemed to get angry at that so I quickly cast a Danish spell I recently found and had recently learned called Mjolnir. It knocked the troll back and caused it to hit its head, knocking it out." The professor's eyes opened wide at the spells used, but didn't question it as he knew the boy was talented.

"Very well then. 20 points to ravenclaw Mr. Potter for helping a friend in need and knocking out the troll in defence of said friend. I will now conduct you both to the infirmary to make sure you are alright. Then you can go back to the common room where the feast is continuing." Harry and Hermione nodded and Harry, taking Hermione's hand, led her from the bathroom and followed the professor towards the infirmary, leaving the other two heads of house speechless at a first year managing to defend themselves from a magical creature such as a troll.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Hi all. Thanks for the reviews from last chapter. I am still deciding about the third pairing as the story progresses. I must admit to you all, this story is being made as I write, there is no plan other than to follow the initial concept of the original story. So we will see how it goes. A short one this time as it's the run-up to Christmas.

Chapter 17.

The next day there were rumours flying all over the castle about Harry saving Hermione from the troll. The Hogwarts rumour mill, which usually ran at the speed of light, had managed to reach every end of the castle with the news of his defeat of the troll. Harry chose to maturely ignore it all and continue on with his schedule, including classes and studying with his friends. He noticed he had many admiring looks and there were whispers about what had happened, but he knew it would all shortly be forgotten as the first quidditch match of the season came closer, especially with Longbottom as the new seeker.

His friends had reacted as he had expected when they heard the news. All the girls thought it was sweet that he had gone up to see Hermione and all but Daphne agreed that it was romantic how he had managed to defend Hermione and defeat the beast. Daphne just kept a rather close eye on him from that point onwards as if trying to work something out about him. He just let her as he really had no idea what she was thinking. Blaise became even more interested in him as a person, particularly when he noticed that harry did not care for the attention his actions had garnered. This increased further when Blaise discovered later on Harry's intention to go back to the Ravenclaw common room once the troll had been defeated, except Hermione breaking down and hugging him and the swiftness of the teachers had prevented this.

Talk and gossip about Harry's actions did eventually fade, but not before a humorous incident involving the boy-who-lived occurred. Harry was with his friend's in-between classes in one of the courtyards taking in some fresh air before going to their next class when Neville approached Harry.

"Good work you did with the troll Mate!" He said to harry, slapping him on the back in a friendly manner. Harry looked at him in a bored manner and said

"Do I know you?" All of his friends sniggered, save Daphne whose lips twitched slightly in amusement. Neville's face turned red as people began muttering and sniggering around him as he said

"You know perfectly well who I am Potter. I am Neville longbottom." Harry appeared to look surprised for a moment as he looked at Neville and then said as if suddenly realising

"Of course! I met you in the potions corridor where you first introduced yourself and then threatened me." People fell silent as they heard this and the muttering became louder. Harry then stepped forward and said to Neville loudly enough for everyone else to hear

"I don't know why you are pretending to be my friend Longbottom, but everyone who knows me know I despise bullies and after your actions towards one of my friends," At this, he gestured to Hermione who gave Neville a glare, "do not expect me to be friends with you anytime soon." With that, Harry turned away from Neville and walked away, leading his friends towards their next class.

By the time dinner came that evening it was publicly recognised that Neville Longbottom had tried to insinuate that he and harry were friends and that Harry had effectively berated him and told him in no uncertain terms that he would never be friends with him as he bullied one of his friends as well as having threatened harry previously when they had first met. Harry was satisfied after this that no one would consider him in the same breath as the boy-who-lived and knew that soon enough Malfoy would stick his nose into affairs and remove harry from the picture, which he was fine with.

Not surprising this happened within 2 days of the confrontation. As the Gryffindor versus Slytherin quidditch match was that weekend, Malfoy started in on longbottom about his chances of catching the snitch and not killing himself. In fact from what Harry heard, the weasley twins, even though they were on the same team as longbottom, were doing a roaring trade in a betting pool about Longbottom's chances. Harry hoped they had taken enough bets to cover themselves as he doubted that he would do very well. Harry also felt no compunction in not helping Neville if Quirrel attempted to jinx his broom. In fact, Harry decided to be in the library during the match and confirmed with his friends that they would all be there, as none of them were interested in the rivalry and since none of their teams were playing, it was even less interesting. Therefore the morning of the match, harry led all of his friends down to the hallway where the bowl of fruit painting was and showing them to tickle the pear, introduced them all to the Hogwarts's Kitchens. After explaining house elves to Hermione after they were engulfed by a crowd of the little beings and herded to a table where their breakfast was soon presented to them, they all began to eat.

The morning proceeded peacefully for them all as they ate and talked and then trooped up to the library. The bonus with being in the library at this time was that there were few people in the library besides themselves. There were only a few Ravenclaws sitting in remote locations within the library and they were quietly going about their business so it was quite easy to think of having the library to themselves. They first made sure they had completed their homework, which they had done so an hour after they had arrived at the library. They had all put their homework away and were deep into their recreational reading when people began filtering into the library and soon the noisiness of the library grew to the point where they decided to go down and have lunch, since it was due soon anyway.

It was while they were sitting down to have lunch that they heard what had happened during the quidditch match. Slytherin had slaughtered the Gryffindor team and the majority of the responsibility for this seemed to be Neville Longbottom and him nearly falling off of his broom when it went out of control. It ended up that the two beaters, George and Fred Weasley, had to circle under Neville in case he fell. This meant that there was no protection for the Gryffindor chasers and consequently by the time Myles Bletchley caught the snitch, Slytherin was 200 points ahead.

Harry gathered that Professor Snape had once again been protecting the boy from the jinx that Professor Quirrel was trying to put on Neville's broom. While it was enough to prevent him from falling off of his broom, it was not enough to completely prevent Neville from having any chance of beating Slytherin.

After the match, things pretty much settled down, save for the taunts that most Slytherins, led by Draco Malfoy, now continually threw towards Neville whenever they came across him. Apparently a lot of the shine had come off of the boy-who-lived since he had first appeared at Hogwarts. Many of the children now seemed to just see him as a normal wizard and probably not a very good one if his flying abilities and his performance in class were indications. The problems for Neville began at this point. Since Neville had been brought up in the wizarding world by his parents with the expectation that he was something great, the fact he was not being given any adulation meant he was constantly in a bad mood. He then started becoming a worse bully as a way to gain back some power. Problem was though that Flitwick had put the professors on alert about this possibility. This meant that every time he tried something, Neville found himself in detention. It ended up that he had detention right through to the end of the year by the time that the Christmas holidays came up. This meant that if he received any more punishment, he would be suspended. This then led to what the Hogwarts rumour mill described as a fiery argument between the headmaster and the Longbottoms during a conference they were called to about their son's behaviour.

Consequent to this, Neville Longbottom faded into the background and no longer tried to gain the limelight. If anything, he became the joke of first-year as his constant melting cauldrons and accidents was so infamous that everyone actually left a gap between his workstation and their own so as not to be in the area of effect for when his cauldron inevitably exploded or melted.

Soon enough the sign-up sheet came up for Christmas and Harry and his friends began to look forward to going home and seeing their families once more. Harry knew that after Christmas in his last reality was when the mirror of erised was put into place as the final protection of the Philosopher's Stone, so he thought he would not do anything until after the holiday break as neither he or Quirrel actually knew where it was until that point. Harry knew though that Neville would be going home during the holiday period, so wondered how Dumbledore would expose Neville to the mirror, but figured that was Dumbledore's problem, not his.

Finally the day arrived and Harry and his friends met in the entrance hall. Their trunks were going to be transported to the train station along with their pets. Finally the carriages arrived and they boarded, slamming the door behind them, which caused the thestrals to make their way along the track and out towards the train station. Once they arrived at the train station their trunks and pet carriers appeared. They gathered their luggage and made their way into the train and found a compartment. Both harry and Blaise helped the girls put their trunks up into the luggage carriers, while Harry shrunk his trunk and stuck it into his pants pocket. He decided to leave maximus in his carrier despite his protests as he didn't want to have to go through the hassle of getting him back into his carrier at the end of the journey.

The journey on the train proved to be quiet for harry and his friends. He later heard from others that Malfoy and longbottom had a confrontation, but apparently neither deigned to visit his compartment for which he was grateful. Everyone talked about what they expected to do during Christmas. Harry found out that Blaise was heading to Italy to have a Christmas with his extended family, while the others were all having a Christmas at home. Harry was looking forward to spending Christmas with his family but knew he was going to have a nightmare shopping in Diagon alley for Christmas presents.

The train arrived in the late afternoon and harry and Blaise got the trunks down for the girls to change about half an hour before the train arrived while the boys waited outside the compartment. Once the girls had changed, they then waited outside while the two boys changed and then put the trunks back up in storage. The boys once again got them down when they arrived for the girls, who thanked them and then dragged them outside with their pet carriers if they had one on top. Harry then followed Blaise out, levitating his trunk with maximus sitting in his carrier on top out of the compartment and off of the train.

The station was packed with parents and so the group all said their goodbyes just outside of the train. It ended up that Harry was left with Daphne next to him as they then tried to find their parents in the crowd. Harry soon spotted his mother and Ivy as their red hair was quite visible in the crowd and harry saw that the greengrass parents were standing next to his family with Astoria holding her father's hand. He pointed them out to Daphne and they pushed their way through the crowd to where their parents were. Ivy saw Harry first and clambered down out of her mother's arms and raced into Harry's arms with a squeal of delight as he wrapped her in a big hug. She planted a big wet kiss on his cheek and said

"Harry! I missed you!" Harry smiled and answered

"I missed you too munchkin." Harry carried Ivy to his mother, who wrapped them both in a hug. Harry returned the hug as best he could with the little girl in his arms. He looked at iris, who grinned at him, saying

"I'll give you a hug once we get home." Harry smiled and nodded and his mother held out the port key, which he took hold of after handing Ivy to his mother and grabbing hold of his trunk and Maximus's carrier. Iris also took hold and once they wished the greengrass's a happy holiday, Lily activated the port key and they disappeared in a whirl of colour back to Potter manor.


End file.
